Defect
by roziefae
Summary: After a simple mission goes wrong in nearly every conceivable way, Zim is left stranded on Earth. Big things are happening in the cosmos, however, and Zim, left with nothing, is forced to make a decision that could decide the fate of the Empire. Eventual ZADF/ZADR
1. Recently-Learned Human Manners

Zim's Voot Cruiser shuddered as he entered the atmosphere of Earth, and he braced himself against the back of his seat, the buckles wrapping around him automatically as the ship prepared itself for a rather bumpy landing. It was of small make, so as to be quick for escapes, and was not outfitted with unnecessary things like weapons. Only sporting two engines that took up most of the mass, and were light shades of purple in color, as was the entirety of the ship, it was clearly designed for scouting missions and not much else. He arrived in a quiet forest somewhere just outside one of the more populated human cities, and began performing diagnostics immediately when the ship was stable and grounded, testing the atmosphere for breath-ability as the computer performed all necessary checks and scanning the local area for any signs of life. Zim activated his PAK's suit just in case the air was not breathable, the skin-tight material snaking out of his PAK and forming around him, a slightly lavender helmet encasing his head and then appearing to vanish. He hopped out of the Voot after the scan had concluded that no life forms were in the immediate area, then opened a hatch on the front of his small ship, greeted with the vibrant, pink smoke of a damaged Light Core as it billowed out from the compartment.

"Oh, Irk, this will take forever," he hissed through his teeth, cursing himself for neglecting to perform maintenance before leaving, and cursing himself again for dealing with so many complications that he could have pushed off on a smaller Irken before he had to leave. Now he was stranded on some water-filled planet out in the middle of nowhere, with only the bare minimum of Intel on the species, and no safe way to get back. He climbed back into the Cruiser after assessing damages. It wasn't anything serious, mostly just stress from using light speed so often and rarely ever servicing the Core. He checked the scans again, finding that yes, it was the core, though the rough landing had put some stress on the left engine as well. Zim scowled. He hated Voots. They were fragile, outdated, and the most simplistic of Irken ships, but the only thing he had been able to secure on such short notice. Or, rather, he had given no notice, and had been forced to take his old Voot, rather than a newer, more reliable model. He cracked the joints in his hands and his fingers hovered over the console, but he hesitated, antennae perking at the sound of an alert.

The right-most screen on the dash was flashing, and underneath readings that told him the Earthen air was breathable, though a tad less dense than the air on Irk, was a warning that alien life was nearby, and approaching quickly. His antennae flattened against his skull, and he shouted a myriad of curses as chirps and clicks in frustration, pounding his fists against the console. He was not supposed to make contact with the locals, he was not supposed to be noticed, he was not supposed to be here at all! This was not the rendezvous point! He had overshot the rendezvous point by about a parsec because of his filthy, damaged, obsolete Voot! He disengaged his space suit, and pulled at his antennae in frustration, for a moment smelling and hearing nothing but static. He had to disguise the ship, and he had to disguise himself, which would set him back again. Oh, the Tallest would have his head for this.

He began typing quickly, eyes flashing between the command console and the alert screen, filtering through the data he had been given on Earth for their primitive vehicles, and choosing one of suitable size to shield his Voot. He then skimmed over the details on human life, choosing a proper disguise for himself that, when finished, was dispensed from the dash in a small metal box. He opened the lid and removed a smooth metal necklace that latched around his throat. The air around him shimmered, and he ceased to appear as an Irken, but rather a young human, hopping out of his Cruiser and waiting in a habitual parade rest for the intruder. Minutes passed, and then a pair of lights appeared in the trees at the fringe of the clearing. A sleek, black car appeared, and rolled to a halt upon seeing Zim standing there. The side hatch opened, and out climbed a taller human, wearing a large, primitive sight-device on his face. Zim tried not to gag at his appearance as the human approached, expression hostile at first, and then slacking with confusion upon seeing Zim. He looked around himself, and took a few more slow steps out into the clearing, holding some remote device out in front of him. Zim waited, patiently, for the human to speak.

"Uh, hi there," he called out, not looking at Zim, who found this highly offensive. His PAK began to whir immediately, registering the new language and latching on to the signals transmitting all around him to find and download it, "Have you seen, a, uh... Well, did you see anything... weird around here just now?" his eyes, white, black, and honey colored, finally fell to rest on Zim, who grinned.

"No, I have not," he called back politely, enjoying how his voice echoed around the clearing, not a hint of accent to be found, "I was having quite the normal evening until you appeared, actually."

"Uh-huh," The human said, seeming unimpressed. He eyed Zim closely, and then stopped walking when he was only a short distance away, "Well, I was running an atmospheric scan, you know, like you do, and I noticed something very peculiar near the end, very strange, so," he paused, glancing up to the sky momentarily and lowering his small device, "I came out to investigate. You sure you didn't see anything?"

"No, I did not see anything out of the normal, boring, average ordinary," The human sniffed, seeming to take slight offence, though Zim was unsure at what. He decided to smile a bit wider, in an attempt to put the thing at ease, but this seemed to serve the opposite purpose.

"Right," he took a step back, and looked down at his remote-thing, as if simply for something to do, "I'm just detecting some radiation in the area, is all, and a foreign frequency. The same frequency my scan detected. Ya'know, the atmosphere scan," he glanced up at Zim again, "So, uh, what are you doing out here?," his gaze shifted to Zim's disguised Voot, "I didn't see any tire tracks... Is this your car?" Zim tensed slightly, but kept his grin fixed in place.

"Yes, it is my normal transportation vehicle!" Zim said, injecting affection into his voice and straightening slightly, but not relaxing his parade stance, "There is nothing unusual about it, and nothing unusual about me, Zim, for that is my normal human name!"

"Uh... huh," The human narrowed his eyes, inspecting critically the turned-up dirt and slight skid marks that were visible in the fading light "Well... it's nice to meet you, Zim... Do you live in town?" Sensing that the human was getting suspicious, Zim avoided the question, resorting to recently-learned human manners.

"Uh, well, you know, I don't believe Zim caught your name?" he said, attempting to be friendly. He held out his hand, which Dib shrunk away from, and Zim's grin slipped slightly. He was losing patience, and itched to do away with this puny, offensive thing. He would have to settle for diplomacy for now, reminding himself that someone might miss this human, that his disappearance might seem suspicious, and that was the only thing, apart from the fact that he would have to be, yet again, delayed on his mission, that kept him from frying this disrespectful creature in his tracks.

"It's Dib," the human, Dib, said after a moment of silent deliberation. He fell quiet again, and Zim, finding the human's wordless gawking extremely impolite, let his grin fall into a look of mild irritation, pretenses dropping.

"Can Zim help you with anything else, or would you like to annoy him with other unnecessary inquiries?" Appearing to hearing the venom in Zim's tone, the Dib-human's expression turned mildly hostile again, but he seemed to relent, turning away from Zim in a decidedly rude fashion, and Zim bristled and could not help but call out, "And you should probably work on your manners, Dib!"

The human did not respond, diminishing Zim's satisfaction slightly. He watched as Dib climbed into his car and began to back out of the clearing, waiting until the lights had begun to fade, and then he exhaled, tension fading and irritation rising. He hastily climbed back into his Voot, making sure that the human Dib was out of his radar range before dropping his disguise. He kept the Cruiser camouflaged just in case any more filthy humans decided to encroach upon his clearing, and, with dread in his squeedly-spooch, he contacted his Tallest.

They were not exactly pleased to see him.

"So let me get this straight," Tallest Red, the most peeved, chirped in a tone that was just barely containing his clear anger, "You left the base in an Outmode, overshot the rendezvous point by an obscene amount, neglected to cloak yourself upon entering a foreign atmosphere on a stealth mission,_ failed_ to message our contact and _your_ mission informant, and then, to top it all off, you were detected by an alien native and you didn't use a cloaking device, again, and instead chose to use camouflage, even going so far as to engaged the human. Is that about right?" Tallest Red had said all of this rather quickly, clearly very irritated, and Tallest Purple, standing next to him, nodded fervently along, though he seemed more interested in a bag of snacks he was nursing. Zim tried to look as pitiful as possible when he addressed his Tallest.

"Well... to be completely fair, it was a stressful situation, and Zim was already running late-"

"And whose fault is that?" Red snapped, Purple chiming in briefly with a quick,"Yeah!" before turning and watching something off-screen. Zim shifted nervously, trying not to outright grovel on his knees for forgiveness, and still managing to maintaining a dignified attention.

"Perhaps someone should have... given Zim a better ship... beforehand?" Zim said sheepishly, perhaps pushing it a bit, but hoping that his Tallest would take some humor from it.

They did not.

"We_ did_ give you a better ship, Zim, but you were so late you didn't get to pick it up," Red said, exasperated, and began typing something into the console in front of him, "We're going to notify our informant to come back to base. The mission is cancelled until further notice, because of your mistakes," he then muttered something else quietly, so that Zim was clearly not intended to respond, but would still be able to hear it, "It figures you would fail at a simple extraction mission. I should have known better."

"Wh... Bu-but, my Tallest, Zim is already here! I can still proceed, if the contact will only-"

"Waste her time and ours? No, Zim, the mission has already been compromised," Red spoke, purposefully not even sparing him a glance, and Zim's hands itched, the word 'compromised' ringing around in his skull, and the self-destruct button built into his glove was suddenly feeling very heavy and tempting. He waited, silent, caressing his right wrist nervously behind his back, for his Tallest's verdict. Purple spoke up, also not looking at Zim, but at the screen to the slight left of the video feed. They were shaming him, it seemed, both of them refusing eye contact. Zim felt this was a tad unnecessary. He felt ashamed enough as is, but he did not dare say anything.

"So, eh, it looks like it'll take a couple weeks Earth time to get somebody out there," Purple said nonchalantly, and inhaled another doughnut. When he spoke again, it was through a full mouth, "You can head straight to the Massive, with the escort. We'll discuss you're punishment when you get back!" Rather than sounding authoritative as Red had, Purple's tone seemed more scolding, though it still somehow still held the same weight that a death sentence did. Zim stopped rubbing his wrist, and bowed to his Tallest, effectively ending their correspondence.

"Yes, my Tallest," he said, tone dutiful, though the transmission had already been cut.

* * *

_if it wasn't clear, dib thought he was being made fun of when zim insisted he had seen nothing out of the ordinary. that's why he seemed offended._

_i'm a little rusty writing-wise, because i haven't been writing as much as i used to, but hopefully this turned out alright. if you see any mistakes, let me know! and constructive criticism is always welcome! is the description cheesy? i feel like it's cheesy._

_anyway, as a rule, i never promise to finish fics, but i'll do my best to keep continuing this one, ahaha. so, i hope you enjoyed, and thanks so much for reading!_

EDIT: i updated this chapter! just did a bit of editing here and there. i wanted to preserve the author's note, though. it felt wrong to delete it.


	2. Digital Pig Slaughter

Zim stood in front of the Voot's dash console for a long few moments, staring into the static that The Tallest had left behind after cutting the transmission. He did this often, when things went badly, imagining that the static was his whirling thoughts and feelings, rushing in a flurry across the screen and through his mind. He switched the screen back to the data he had been gathering, and his thoughts, as they often did in situations like this, were redirected and recycled. The Tallest were ending his mission and had requested his presence at the Massive, which could only mean one of a few things. One, he could be being honored, which he doubted, considering the tone of their last correspondence. Two, they could be recruiting him onto their staff, which he also doubted, because he had been formally banned from ever working on the Massive, and he _sincerely doubted_ the ban would be lifted. Not after what happened. Zim shivered, thoughts turning to phantom screams of heat and fire, and his skin began to crawl when he remembered the snacks. Irk, the snacks.

He shook himself mentally, and distracted himself for a few minutes by doing a few more in-depth diagnostics on the ship's core as he considered the third, and last, possibility. By requesting his presence at the Massive, the Tallest could be thinking of having him publicly executed. Never before had he entertained this idea, but the thought crept into his mind now like an unwelcome guest, and his fingers slowed at the keys. The ship's power was down forty percent. He deactivated the engines and powered down the core, allowing for it to cool down before he considered the work that would have to be done on the ship, careful to tiptoe around troublesome thoughts. He could not stay in this field, not with the human creature sniffing around with that... _unsightly_ scent-growth.

Fixing the core would be impossible with the basic tools he had brought with him, Zim decided after studying the diagnostics. The most he could do was fix the engine, and if he went slow, he would be able to relocate himself to a more remote area. The Tallest had not given him a concrete estimate on when they would retrieve him, but judging by the movement of the sun, time moved a little slower than it did on Irk. Comparative to that, he would have quite a lot of time on his hands, and perhaps blending in with the locals and exploring would be a better way to spend it. He huffed, irritated. Touring this planet would be like touring a huge, bizarre museum, something he had always thought to be boring and pointless. At least it was better than moping in some desert. If only he could fix the light core himself, then he would at least be able to tell his Tallest that he had done _something_ right.

Zim checked the radar before he left his Voot, making sure no humans were close. Though none were on the radar, Zim flicked his disguise on anyway, unwilling to risk being spotted while unprepared, and collected his tools from a compartment beneath his seat. He grumbled for a moment about how compact the Voot model was as he struggled to retrieve the case, having to crouch uncomfortably between the dash and the chair. It wasn't _much_ too small for him- he could fit well enough to sit comfortably, but not enough to use the ship properly, which was maddening when he remembered that only fifty quarters ago he had been able to fit perfectly. Maddening, but also a point of pride. Irkens often went through random growth spurts early on in their first hundred quarters, and Zim counted himself lucky that his had happened at all, whether or not he was still only working as a low-ranking Retrieval Unit- not even an officer! It bordered on blasphemy, how some shorter Irkens ordered him around, even if they did it with fear and respect because of his size.

He exited his Voot and crossed to the front, opening the engine hatch, which still looked like the hood of an earth vehicle. Glancing around cautiously, he waved away some of the pink smoke that curled up into the air, and began work on maintaining the engine. It was work for smeets, really, and was painfully simple, especially with the outdated tech he was working with. Just as he finished, the alarm for the radar began blaring again, and he pulled himself from the engine so quickly he slammed his head roughly against the hood and scattered his disguise briefly. He let out a sharp curse and dropped his tools, hopping up into the cockpit to see that a dot had appeared on the very edge of his radar. It was moving, albeit very slowly, along the very edge of the radar's circumference. What on Irk? He watched it for a moment, transfixed, and then panic seized him when he realized that it must have been the prying human from before. He hissed, and quickly left his Voot to retrieve his tools and close the engine hatch before he left the area. It wasn't safe to stay here, not with a human sniffing about. He climbed back into the Voot and powered the engine back up, deactivating the radar and cutting off the signal he had been broadcasting. The encryption he had used had, apparently, been useless.

Ever so slowly, Zim lifted off from the ground, and engaged his cloaking device almost immediately when he cleared the treetops, leaving the horrible clearing and, hopefully, the awful human far behind him.

...

Dib blanched, watching as the odd, alien signal he had been tracking disappeared from his Scanner. He shook the device, used to having it break down on him randomly, and was irritated to find that it would not latch back onto the frequency. He carried it back along the line he had been marking, picking up the string and spikes as he went. He would have to come back out later, after he took his Scanner home for repairs. Cursing himself, he made a mental promise to always carry his tools on his person, or at least in his car from then on. It was just too much trouble to have to run back home when something went wrong.

He tossed the string and spikes back into his trunk when he reached his car, and decide to check the camera he had left in the field from earlier. The person he had found there had seemed... strange, somehow. Maybe it was just their mannerisms, but Dib hadn't trusted them at all, and the frequency he had been picking up matched the one he had detected in the atmosphere scan he had done that evening. So, before leaving the clearing, he had dropped one of the small, micro-cameras that he had taken from his dad's lab a few weeks back. He usually used them very conservatively, as they were a very advanced tech of his father's own design, supposedly unable to be detected by most known technology. It had just been way too good to pass up swiping a few while his dad was out.

He had done a few modifications of his own, of course, loving to experiment with any kind of robotics. Having access to an actual _alien ship_ (and, by extension,_ alien tech!_) didn't hurt either. He grinned just thinking about it. It had taken him weeks to figure out the controls, and even then he only just barely understood the language. The technology had been almost incomprehensible to him, but after some trial and error (and a lot of explosions), he had been able to figure it out,to some extent. Dib spent most of his time experimenting with the ship, and he had hoped to be able to contact some form of alien life with it. He had been, thus far, completely unsuccessful in doing so, but he never gave up! At least, not yet. He often wondered if he should just hand the ship over to the FBI, or something, but the idea of losing something so amazing and never having access to it again was just too depressing.

Dib played back the footage the camera had recorded, fast forwarding through the automatic relocation, and slowing down when he saw the truck sitting there, alone, with no sign of the person he had met. Suddenly, they climbed out of their truck through the window, and Dib immediately paused, rewound, and leaned forward. There had been no one in the dark truck before they abruptly appeared in the window, already in mid-climb. He swallowed, taking the footage frame-by-frame, and watching the time stamps for any kind of skip. Seeing none, he recorded the time stamps on a scrap piece of paper with a few hasty notes about the person apparently teleporting. He continued to play the footage slowly, watching them open the hood of their truck and climb up onto the bumper to do some work in the engine. They did this for roughly twenty minutes (which Dib fast-forwarded through), and then an alarm began blaring from, presumably, the inside of their truck. They stopped work instantly, shot up, and smashed their head against the hood. Dib's breathe caught in his throat, and he rewound the video again, watching frame-by-frame as their entire body flickered out for a second, skin turning green, two long antennae sprouting in place of hair, plain clothes becoming what must have been an alien uniform. He recorded this as well, and watched the rest of the video in slow motion, jaw actually dropping when, at the very end, he saw the truck straight-up hover in the air for a moment, and then flicker out of existence entirely.

"What the fuck," he said quietly, watching the footage through again and again, mesmerized by his findings. Finally, he sat back, in awe, "Well, this is something," he said to himself, saving the footage. He had been right to suspect them, then. He just hoped they hadn't gone too far, or he'd have a hell of a time finding them. Dib had to find out what their purpose was; had to know if they were hostile or friendly. His finger hovered over the Swollen Eyeball icon on his computer, tempted to call in reinforcements and show them the video he had taken, but he paused.

Did he even need their help with this? None of them would have access to the tech he did. He thought of the ship, holed away in his garage back home, the one he had been broadcasting on weekly to try to make contact with alien life. Could this alien be here because of him? Was there anyone he could trust to help him get in contact with this alien, _without_ notifying the government or taking the alien into custody? Or taking _him_ into custody for hoarding alien technology in the first place? He tapped his fingers on the dash, and then called the micro camera to return home. He was walking on thin ice as it was, and he was lucky nobody had found out about the ship in his garage yet. Well, aside from his sister, Gaz, who, apart from hovering around apathetically when he was in the garage, messing around with the ship in some vague attempt at repairing it, didn't seem too interested. So, except for her, it would be best to just keep this to himself for now, he decided

He began the drive home solemnly, struggling to focus on the road in front of him while his mind was a million miles away. When he pulled into the driveway, he made straight for the garage, not even going into the house first before he settled into his makeshift lab. It was dark enough by now that he was sure nobody would see into the room and notice all of the strange wires and cables, or the scattered boxes of papers and tools, and, as he hit the button to close the garage door behind him, he was hardly thinking about nosy neighbors or anything of the like. He flicked the switch near the door to turn the dim lights on, and lugged his things along to the table on the far side of the room. The door connecting the garage to the house opened, and Gaz crept in quietly, peering curiously at his laptop.

"_This_ came for you," she said, voice low as she closed the door behind her. Dib glanced over to see her holding up the micro-camera, its red light blinking slowly.

"Ah-thanks," he said, crossing the room quickly to take it from her and tuck it safely back into his pocket, "Yeah, I. Didn't wanna go back for it, so..."

"Dad would be pissed if he knew you were using it," she hoisted herself up onto the stool near the ship (still covered by a sheet, which did little to disguise its presence, but gave Dib some small piece of mind). It was her usual perch, but now, for some reason, it made Dib nervous.

"It's for a good cause," he said, busying himself back to his desk and opening his laptop, "Dad would understand. Or. Well, he _will_ understand. Or, well," he paused, watching the computer boot up, "He doesn't have to know."

"Yeah, whatever," Gaz responded flippantly. Dib could hear the sound of her Game Slave start up, the theme song to Demon Pigs (the spiritual successor to Vampire Piggy Hunter) playing in the background "I don't really care, but you probably shouldn't have it fly itself home next time."

"I know, I know," Dib said, mildly chagrined. He stared at his desktop for a few moments, anxious to get to work, but hesitant to bring up the necessary files. He began drumming his fingers on his desk, "Uh... hey, Gaz," there was a moment of silence between them, broken only by the sounds of digital pig slaughter. Then, Gaz huffed a sigh.

"_What_?" Dib turned to look at her, finding her leaning in close to her game, expression mildly irritated.

"Did you, um. Did you want to see what I recorded tonight?" despite his reservations, he was dying to show someone his findings, and he knew he could trust Gaz. Or, at least, he thought he could trust Gaz. He could _probably_ trust Gaz, maybe not to help, but to care so little that she wouldn't tell anybody else. She paused her game, squinting up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I dunno, Dib, is it worth my time?" she drawled bitterly, and Dib grimaced, thinking back to a few other videos he had made her watch with him. He had taken to reviewing his findings alone first, if only to make sure they had anything relevant or interesting to share, and it had been weeks since he had asked Gaz to watch them with him.

"This time, it's for real, I promise!" he said quickly, "You won't be disappointed!"

"Well," Gaz paused for a moment, "Alright. But this had better be good," she pushed herself up from her stool, Game Slave still in hand, and walked over to his desk while he pulled up the video feed. He watched her face closely as the video played, and he made sure to slow down the parts of interest for her, eager to hear her take on his findings. Her expression did not change as she watched, but, he was pleased to see, she didn't seem entirely unimpressed. The video cut out on the empty field, and Dib hit pause as it automatically restarted.

"Well?" he asked eagerly.

"Hm," she straightened up, "Yeah, that was weird."

"Right?!" Dib exclaimed excitedly, "They were acting strangely when I met them in the field, too! Oh- right, I didn't tell you about that! Well, earlier today, I was running my daily atmospheric scan, you know, like you do, and-"

"Stop," she smacked him lightly upside the head- not enough to hurt, but enough to make him shut up, "I don't care about your weird scans- this is cool," she said, pointing to the video, "What are you gonna do with it?"

"Oh-uh," he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "I- I don't know. I'll study it, for sure, but," he gestured to the ship behind him helplessly, and Gaz hummed, "I thought about showing the Eyeballs, but. I dunno, I think they'd be more hostile than. Willing to talk, or- or get in _contact_ with the alien. I just want to meet one, you know? Talk to it, learn about it, see if it's hostile before I..." he could tell he was losing her interest, so he rerouted, "I'm gonna sit on it. And- I'll maybe try to contact it. The alien, I mean," Gaz snorted, walking back to her seat by the ship.

"Yeah, just like the other _hundred times_ you've tried to contact an alien," she switched her game back on, yawning, "If they could hear you, I _think_ they would have signaled back by now," Dib sighed, deflated. He turned back to his laptop, staring at the still of the truck on the screen. If only he could see what the actual ship looked like, out of its disguise. If only...

"Yeah," he agreed quietly, "I have to try, though, you know? I mean, think about it! I find an alien ship, start sending out signals, and then an alien comes to earth?" he grinned, becoming animated again, "It _can't_ be a coincidence!" Gaz didn't respond for a moment, and when she did, her tone was grave.

"Well, let's just hope you didn't doom us all," Dib's stomach bottomed out, but he shook himself, forcing a laugh.

"Yeah, right," he said, but the very real possibility, now that it had dawned on him, would not go away. He threw himself into his analysis then, the world falling away as he drowned himself in possibilities of the unknown.

* * *

oh! what is this? an update? no, couldn't be. must be your imagination

sorry this chapter took so long! i definitely haven't forgotten about this and i do intend to continue it! i _should_ be able to get the next chapter up within the month, but if not, well, june isn't _too_ far away.

thanks for reading!


	3. Couldn't Sleep

"I don't even like it," Purple said to Red, cramming popcorn into his mouth as they stood on the captain's podium in the main chamber of the Massive, "There's too much water."

Red threw him an irate glance, taking his focus briefly from the diagrams of Earth that were projected on the screens before them. These were the first words Tallest Purple had spoken to Red since their correspondence with Zim, and the only input he had given on the situation of what to do with planet Earth. Red leaned forward, pretending to study the diagrams closely.

"You don't have to like it," he chirped for the fifth time that day, exasperated, "We're not _keeping_ it. It's so... dirty," Red shuddered, clearly disgusted. He paused, leaning back, "It can be... I dunno, another Dirt."

"A _garbage_ planet?" Purple rolled his eyes, flying up to examine the data they had on earth, "We don't need another garbage planet. I don't even know why we _have_ a garbage planet! What is it with you and garbage planets? Huh?"

"The garbage has to go somewhere!" Red snapped loudly, causing the several shorter Irkens who were piloting the ship to cower briefly before working twice as hard as they had been, none of them willing to get caught up in Tallest Red's wrath. He glared at Purple's back for a moment, and then composed himself, "What would you do with it?"

"I dunno," Purple paused in thought, then said slowly, his excitement rising with each word, "I like snacks... Let's make another snack planet! Foodcourtia 2!" Purple shouted, but Red groaned loudly, rolling his eyes.

"Foodcourtia is _filthy_, we might as well be making it a garbage planet."

"Or we could just shoot all the garbage into a star, like _I_ suggested," Purple said, "But no, that's too fun, we need a _garbage_ planet, it's _cheaper_-"

"It _is_ cheaper!" Red shouted, and flew up to float near Purple, "You agreed to it! The idea was to get all of the garbage somewhere, then scrape it up when the surface becomes unlivable, _then_ shoot it into the sun! That's what the slaves are for."

"But if we just built a huge space funnel-"

"No! No space funnels!" he barked, jabbing Purple in the side roughly. He glared at the data on the big screen, sighing, "We'll figure out what to do with it later. Get our informant on the line," he snapped to one of the pilots, and all of them sprang into action, "We've got a mess to clean up," Red crossed his arms behind his back and hovered back down to the podium. Purple, rubbing his side in mock pain, followed slowly behind after a moment, grumbling under his breath about spilling popcorn.

...

All Irkens were soldiers. It didn't matter what it liked to do, because Irken soldiers weren't supposed to like anything. It didn't matter what it wanted to do, because an Irken was only supposed to want to be disposable enough to serve their Empire. If an Irken wasn't a soldier, it was useless, so therefore, all Irkens wanted to be soldiers at the front of their minds, because this was their sole purpose- they were made to fight, conquer, and destroy, and were told always to report any nagging voices at the back of their minds that told them that they might want to do something else, so they could be Corrected and Reintegrated into society. If Correction didn't work, an Irken would be Deleted and Recycled, their PAK dismantled and reconstructed into a million other PAKs. Sometimes they were destroyed completely, if an Imperfection was too difficult to get rid of.

Zim liked war. He liked to fight, conquer, and destroy. He liked it so much- liked serving the Empire _so much_, that sometimes he acted a little too rashly, with a little too much passion. A soldier was never supposed to act rashly in crisis. A soldier was not supposed to be so passionate. A soldier was supposed to always keep its head and be able to calculate the most efficient path to take. Zim had never been able to focus like that, had never been quite efficient enough, it seemed, to be more than what he was: an Imperfection.

Zim stared at the static on his voot's computer screen, because he liked to, and because it helped him clear his mind of troublesome thoughts. Always there, though, at the back of his mind, was the reminder that Irken soldiers were not supposed to like anything.

...

Dib rolled over in bed, groggy still from lack of sleep, and let his hand fall down on his alarm clock to switch it off. It hadn't gone off yet, but he had been sleeping on and off all night, and one glance at the time told him that trying to go back to bed at this point was useless. He pushed himself up on the mattress, barely able to cling to consciousness with his mind so filled with nightmares about aliens storming into his room and ripping him open, or kidnapping him to make him watch as his planet was destroyed and then dissecting him; a fitting punishment for sending out alien signals into space when he didn't even understand what they were saying. He rubbed at his temples, stood on shaky legs, and went to get ready for work.

"You're up early," Gaz said from the couch, getting in some extra game time before she had to go to school. She glanced over briefly in between bites of leftover pizza and rapid button mashing. He squinted at her from across the room, unable to open his eyes all the way.

"Couldn't sleep," he muttered, walking stiffly through the living room to the kitchen. Gaz gave a quick hum from her place on the couch, and said no more.

Dib rummaged through the fridge, looking for something to eat, but there was only old pizza and take-out. He decided to skip breakfast, but started the coffee maker before he joined Gaz on the couch. She was playing Zombie Murder Party 3, a game where you play as a zombie who hates demons and wants to kill them all. She seemed to be doing very well, but Dib couldn't really tell. There wasn't a score.

"Is dad home?" he asked idly while he waited for his coffee to be made. Gaz shrugged, snatching another bite of pizza, her eyes fixed on the HD bloodshed in front of her. Dib let the silence stretch on, unsure if he wanted to talk about his nightmares with her. He didn't have to wonder about it too long, though, because she soon spoke up on the matter herself, to his surprise.

"Why couldn't you sleep?" she asked, tone disinterested. The fact that she had asked at all was good enough for Dib, though. He pressed his palms against his eyes, wiping the sleep from them.

"Just having nightmares about the possibility that I am the catalyst for an alien invasion that could destroy all life on the planet," he said miserably, "That's all," Gaz hummed again, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"Doesn't sound so bad," she said, as the coffee maker went off. Dib sighed, and pushed himself up off the couch.

Work was the same as always, with irrationally upset customers and unsympathetic managers. He had a mindless job stocking shelves, and all around him were other mindless worker drones who were more concerned with gossip and idle chatter than actually doing their work. It was a lot like the high school mentality he had observed back when he was _in_ school, but he really couldn't blame them. He would rather have been doing anything else too, and if there was somebody who worked there who liked the paranormal, Dib would be talking their ear off right now.

He glanced around himself for the first time in roughly ten minutes, and watched the customers for a moment as he stocked. It was strange, looking up from his work. It always felt like he had been somewhere else, and he was somewhat surprised at where he actually was, and what he was actually doing. Zoning out was just too easy with a job like this. He began to drift off again, letting the hours drag on until he could leave.

After his shift ended, and he was heading out to his car through the side entrance to the store, he saw someone familiar walking calmly through the parking lot, eating from a bag of chips idly. They had the same plain clothes, the same dark skin, the same dark hair, the same indigo eyes- without a doubt, Dib was sure that this was the alien from the clearing. His heart seemed to stutter, and he rushed over, unable to believe his luck, "Hey!" he shouted, catching the alien's attention, "Over here!"

"What?" they called out, irritated. Dib slowed to a stop near them, and saw recognition flicker across their features. They narrowed their eyes,"Make it quick, nose-beast."

Dib stayed quiet, though, unsure of what to say first as he studied them. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, too many things rushing through his head at once. The alien, however, seemed to be losing their patience.

"Riveting," they said venomously, throwing a handful of chips at Dib's face, surprising him out of his reverie. Dib glared at them as they walked away and quickly trailing after them.

"Uh- wait," he said, "Please," he tacked on when he saw the narrow-eyed look of irritation they shot him, "I need to talk to you. We, uh, we met in the clearing?"

"Yes, you were very rude. Cease your noise, nose-beast, Zim has more important matters to attend to," it was clear, though, as they stuffed their face further, that they had no intention of doing anything serious. Dib continued to follow him.

"Zim... uh, is that your name?" Dib asked in an attempt to continue their conversation. Zim suddenly stopped walking, whipping around to stare at him, their expression so offended that Dib would have apologized immediately, if Zim had let him.

"You- _forgot_ Zim's name? Zim _introduced_ himself in the-" he hissed angrily, throwing more chips Dib's way, "Oh, you wretched little filth creature!"

"Sor-wha-stop it!" he smacked the back out of Zim's hand, earning himself a push. He glared, but quickly collected himself, keeping in mind that he was trying to be friends, "Sorry, uh, okay, I'm really sorry. I remember now, I was just. I was thinking about a lot of things in between then and now, okay? It's not that big a deal, I didn't mean to offend you."

"Apology acknowledged and denied," Zim said, sneering up at Dib, who exhaled through his nose, attempting to remain calm.

"Uh, right, that's fine, whatever," Dib paused, brightening a little, "but, I needed to tell you- I was the one sending out the broadcasts," Zim stared at him for a moment, expression unclear.

"What?" he finally said, apparently at a loss. Dib glanced around himself, and then lowered his voice, even though any potential eavesdroppers were too far off to hear them.

"The- the broadcasts. That's why you're here on earth, right?" Zim's expression almost seemed scared for a moment, so Dib went on, "When I saw you on the recording, uh, when your disguise went out, I-" Zim's expression was panicked now, his eyes widened. He hissed for Dib to shut up, and then glanced around himself, seeming to check for people just as Dib had.

"What do you mean, video? Zim's scan detected no- I mean, that's preposterous!" Dib grinned.

"Yeah, I used, uh- hang on," he fished around in his pockets for one of the micro cameras. He usually kept one or two on him at all times, just in case he needed them, and he was very eager to show them to Zim, if only to show off a little. He held one up, and Zim took it immediately, examining it, "It's a, uh, micro-camera! My dad designed them to be undetectable to most known forms of technology, and, not to brag, but I did some modifications of my own to make them undetectable to alien technology too! I- guess I didn't know that it worked, but now I'm pretty sure-"

"How did you do this," Zim demanded, interrupting him. His expression was suddenly very annoyed, and Dib laughed sheepishly, "How did you design this. You mentioned broadcasts, how did you do that. Tell me."

"Uh-of course!" Dib smiled, "I can show you how I did it, if-"

"Yes. Show me. You will take Zim to your base of operations, and then you will show Zim the video you took of him," Zim said, and held up the micro camera, "I'm keeping this."

"Wh-" Dib stared down at Zim as the situation dawned on him. He was talking to an alien right now. An alien who had just asked to visit his house. An _alien_ who was interested in _his_ tech! His expression split into a wide grin, and he was too excited to be annoyed that Zim had just stolen something very valuable from him, "Yeah, yeah, sure! Of course! We- we should take my car! It's the quickest way to get-"

"Yes, good, whatever," Zim said, scanning the parking lot and spotting the car Dib had used to drive into the clearing, "Let's get on with it, then," He started walking before Dib did, and Dib caught up easily, keeping pace with him and practically bursting with excitement.

"This is so, so awesome," he said, talking as much to himself as he was to Zim.

* * *

edit: some minor fixes i didn't notice before publishing!

lots of dialog in this chapter.

there was supposed to be a whole scene where dib chases down this guy who zim's disguise is based off of, and then meets zim immediately after, but it sounded much, much better in my head, and i just couldn't make it flow correctly. i can't decide how serious i want this story's tone to be. i'm sure it's pretty apparent with how much it flip flops.

anyway, thanks so much for the support! and thank you for reading! oh boy, now everybody's gonna meet. i'm sure everything will be fine!


	4. Some Whole Other Level of Illegal

The ride to Dib's home was tense, in a way Dib didn't quite understand at first. He had thought they had made some serious progress, what with Dib showing Zim some cool technology and then agreeing to take him to his garage lab. In his mind, things were going really well! He had made contact with a real alien, said alien was interested in his research, and nobody had yelled at him at work today. Any attempt at conversation was met with stony silence, however, and Dib was growing more and more frustrated.

When the gun appeared, Dib was a little more clear on the mood of the situation.

"Whoah, whoah!" he swerved slightly, trying to get a better look at the strange, alien weapon. Zim hissed, clicking a few times.

"Watch the road," he snapped, tone colored with barely-concealed rage and some frantic form of desperation. Dib turned his wild gaze to the street before him, and tried to keep his speed consistent.

"There's really no need for weapons," he said, surprised at how level his voice was. A subtle irritation was rising behind his words, but it was outweighed by the fear of getting his head blown off, "I'm not going to try to- double cross you, or anything, I wouldn't-" Zim began to laugh, sharp and hoarse. He smirked at Dib, looking more angry than amused.

"As if you could outsmart Zim," he sat back in his seat, gun still trained on Dib, who he leveled with an icy glare, "I'm so tired of your horrible noise. Nothing but disgusting, grating sounds come from you," he put a hand to his temple, as if to emphasize this, "It makes me sick just looking at you. To think, you had your hands on Irken technology," Dib's curiosity spiked at the mention of a name, but he kept his mouth shut, staring forward. He had to take a left next. Zim lowered the gun slightly as the light changed.

"This miserable filth planet is so humid, I can't stand it," he began to complain, and Dib's eyes traveled to Zim's gun, which was now slack in his hand. His heartbeat sped up slightly, and he snapped back to attention when Zim spoke again, "Even your snacks aren't good. Zim only tried them because he was bored, but he hated them. _Greasy_,_ messy_ things. He ate them anyway, to teach you filthies a lesson."

"That..." Dib caught himself and waited, but Zim didn't yell at him, so he continued, nervously, "That doesn't make any sense."

"Quiet!" Dib hit the brakes a little too hard at the next light. He had to make a right here, but he went straight instead when the light turned, "Zim did not ask for your dirt opinion! Zim asked only for silence!" Dib kept his eyes on the road, unsure where exactly he was headed, but absolutely certain that he had made at least one fatal mistake, and not necessarily just today, either. He worried his bottom lip with his teeth as he thought of Gaz, back at home and minding her own business. How could he have thought bringing an alien home would be a good idea? How could he have thought this would go well? He couldn't put her in danger.

The silence stretched on, and when Dib glanced at Zim briefly from the corner of his eye, he noticed that the gun was now resting slack in Zim's hand, draped across his lap. It wasn't even pointing in Dib's direction anymore. Dib looked back to the road, and then chanced another look at Zim, this time at the alien's face. He was staring out the window, expression bored and very far away. Dib relaxed slightly, and slowed to turn right into the next parking lot. His mind began to race as he drove to the very back, away from any cars or people. Zim made a small chirping noise as Dib parked and turned the engine off, clearly confused.

"Nose-beast, where are-"

Dib immediately threw his elbow into the back of Zim's head, causing him to cry out and drop his weapon, which Dib made a mad grab for. Zim recovered quickly, however, and swiped wildly in Dib's direction, knocking his glasses from his face and leaving three long scratch marks behind. Dib reeled back and, as Zim was struggling against his seat belt, Dib kicked him, sending his head slamming into the window roughly. His disguise flickered. Dib saw a flash of glowing red against a pale green and teeth, so many teeth, and as he was recovering, in a frenzied panic, Dib kicked him again, and again, and again. Only when Zim was laying silent, slumped against the window, a dark green oozing out of a wound across his temple, his face bruised and caved in and smeared with blood, did Dib stop, gasping for breath and holding his palm against his wounded forehead. He sucked in a rough breath, and then collapsed against the steering wheel, a shaking wreck.

Above the parking spot, the street light buzzed and a moth threw itself against the light again and again.

Dib started the car. He tried not to look at the mess in the passenger seat as he pulled out of the spot, and he prayed that he would not be stopped at too many red lights on the way home, and that nobody would bother looking into his car tonight. He took the side streets home, and drove slowly, and when he pulled onto his street, he turned the lights off. When he pulled into the driveway and noticed that the lights were still on in his house, he felt an immediate rush of panic. He couldn't let her see. He had to contact the Eyeballs immediately, they were his only chance at this point, and Gaz couldn't be involved. He assumed he would be lucky if he didn't go to some high security government prison, at this rate. Murder was one thing, but murdering sentient life from space was probably on some whole other level of illegal that he didn't even now about. Not to mention the ship in his garage and the stolen micro cameras mixed into his things that were modified with alien technology, and, let's be honest, probably highly unstable. He didn't know half of their new functions, he just pretended he did.

Zim would probably have known- Zim probably did know, that's why he took one, but... Well...

Dib turned off the engine and put his head in his hands, taking a few slow, calming breaths. Okay. He was okay. He would be okay. He would go in through the front, and wait until Gaz was asleep, and-

"Shit," he pulled his bloody hands from his face and flipped the sun visor down. The light flicked on automatically, and he looked at his face in the mirror, dread settling in his gut when he saw the three long cuts across his face, blood trickling down to his chin. They looked bad, but only because they were so bloody- they weren't very deep. He would just clean them up, that's all. He would clean them up, and- a badger! No, a raccoon. Yes, a raccoon had done it, when he dropped his phone by his car, he had bent down and- yes. He had startled the mother, and the little ones had run off after the attack, and they were all okay, of course, but he would have to go in for a rabies shot. Just to be safe. He touched the cuts gingerly, hissing and wincing. They were a little too widely spaced to be a raccoon, but maybe Gaz would buy it anyway. Maybe she wouldn't ask too many questions. He was betting on her apathy tonight.

Dib flipped the visor back up and nearly jumped out of his skin when he looked out the front window. Gaz, clad in her sweatpants and tank top, was standing out in the middle of the driveway, arms crossed and expression decidedly livid. She nodded stiffly to the remains of Zim in the passenger seat, and Dib didn't know what to do. He held up his hands and shrugged helplessly, and Gaz stormed over and rapped on the window. Dib looked on in terror, but helplessly opened his door anyway, unsure what fate had in store for him.

"What the fuck," Gaz hissed immediately, clearly very angry, and Dib's jaw worked as he tried to process the situation, "Where are your glasses? No, actually, what the fuck is that thing in the passenger seat and why- where- did you drive home without your glasses? In the dark?" Dib could hardly focus on her questions, and merely shrugged again. Gaz's posture, already very tense, seemed to tense further, and when she spoke, it was through grit teeth, "I'm going to move some things around in the garage, and you're going to get out of the car," Dib nodded, still feeling very disconnected from the conversation, but willing to agree if only to keep Gaz from killing him. He moved to get out of the car, but was jerked to a stop by his seat belt. Gaz made an irritated noise, and reached around him to unbuckle it, then stepped back to let him get out.

"You're being really stupid right now!" She whisper-shouted, as he stumbled over to the grass and sat down. He thought he heard panic in her tone, but he couldn't respond. She stormed off again, and while she was gone, he twisted his head around to look into the still-open car. The overhead light was on, and Dib could clearly see Zim's crippled form, slumped over and bleeding. As Dib watched, transfixed, he saw Zim's antennae twitch, just once, and only for a brief moment. Dib's breath caught in his throat, and he stayed still, eyes fixed on them, hoping that he was still alive, and at the same time, hoping that he would stay dead. His antennae twitched again.

Zim was still alive.

Immediately, Dib launched up and, ignoring his immediate vertigo, thrust himself back into the driver's seat. He bent down, feeling around on the passenger side floor for Zim's gun and clutched it safely against his chest, stumbling backwards out of the car once more. He watched Zim twitch, lip curling up involuntarily in revulsion and pity. He looked around at the dark neighborhood, and hoped that nobody could see this.

"What are you doing?" Gaz had returned, and Dib opened his mouth, but still could not speak. He gestured at Zim with the alien weapon, and Gaz's eyes, falling first on the foreign gun, flickered to the alien still moving in the car. Zim was curling in on himself now, straining against his seat belt, and his disguise was flickering on and off as something made a long, loud whirring.

"Amazing," Gaz said, her voice monotone and low. She did not hesitate, but lunged forward and slammed Zim's head forcefully into the dash once, twice, three times before she let him fall back into the seat. The whirring stopped, and so did his flickering disguise. If he hadn't been dead before, Dib was positive that he was now. He was horrified, and, "Open the garage door, Dib, and get inside," was all Gaz said.

He did as he was told, and Gaz, her movements forced and aggressive, almost rammed the car into the ship with how quickly she drove it into the garage.

...

The Irken Armada was elite, and every Irken wanted to be among the Tallest's fleet. Barely any were a part of the main Armada, sequestered off on individual planets or assigned to smaller, less efficient fleets that would likely lead the assault in any given battle. They were merely fodder, just bodies to be thrown at an adversary until they got tired and surrendered. The Armada was elite. The foot soldiers were endless. The Irken Empire had enough soldiers to keep an assault going for years, and more soldiers were being made every day, on planets all over the galaxy. Their control had always been undeniable. Their victory, inevitable.

Tallest Red felt that he was more aware of this than his Purple counterpart. That he was more aware of just how much power they held and were responsible for. "You take yourself too seriously," Purple had told him once, and Red hadn't disagreed, because he knew it was true. He took himself and his position very seriously. Somebody had to.

"I see," The violet-eyed Irken on the screen before them nodded as Tallest Red informed them on the situation, "Perhaps now you will reconsider my proposal," She raised an eye ridge, looking from one Tallest to the other. Purple glanced to Red, clearly uncomfortable, and Red looked from him to their informant, one Technician Tak.

"We... might need to think it over," Purple began, meandering through his thoughts as he often did. His hands were behind his back out of respect, but they were holding tight to a nearly empty bag of doughnuts, twisting it this way and that. Red's expression tightened, and he straightened his posture.

"No, We won't," he was looking at Purple when he said this, but his eyes flickered back to Tak quickly, "Speaking off the record, We were unsure of what to do with the planet anyway. It's yours," Tak's face immediately split into a wicked grin, but Red held up a claw, "_if_... you succeed where Zim failed. Retrieve the ship, discover what happened to the Irken who lost it, and report back to us before making any move to conquer it, understood?"

"Understood," Tak's eyes narrowed pleasantly, and she saluted them before cutting off the transmission.

"Are we really giving _her_ a planet?" Purple asked, relaxing and returning to his doughnuts, "She never even graduated from the Academy."

"There's no danger for _us_," Red said, turning to pace slowly, "Besides, we might as well conquer it."

"Ugh. The dominant species is disgusting," Purple said, gazing up at the screen, which was once again displaying data on the planet, "If we enslave them, I don't want them infecting our other planets. Maybe quarantine this one, send criminals here- oh!" Purple snapped his claws, grinning at Red, "Another Prison planet! How about that!"

"Traditionally, if Tak succeeds in conquering it before we come through for the Organic Sweep, _she_ would get to decide what to do with it," Red said dismissively, waving for one of the nearby drones to come closer, "But, I suppose, if she fails us, we could do that. Bring me the remote, would you?" The drone saluted, and rushed away to get the remote for the big screen. Purple sighed and floated over to the control panel, summoning their couch up from the platform.

"It's a good idea, though," he said, plopping down. Red seated himself as well, and relaxed into the sofa cushions.

"Yeah," he relented, eyes glazing over as the drone returned, "I guess it is."

...

"Alright," Gaz said as the garage door shut, "Alright."

Dib was seated at his desk, mentally prepared to call the Eyeballs, but unwilling to go through with it now that Gaz knew about Zim. He let out a quiet, shuddering breath, and tried not to glance over at his car, knowing he would be unable to block out images of the mess inside. He wasn't sure the stains would ever come out, and he wasn't sure if he wanted them to. He wasn't even sure if he wanted that car anymore. Maybe he would just dump it in the lake, watch it sink while they burned Zim's body and destroyed the alien ship. Maybe he would get rid of every bit of his research, burn it all, wipe his computers, destroy the modified micro cameras. They could do it, if they did it fast. They could get rid of it all.

"Alright," Dib said quietly, turning to look at Gaz, who was glaring silently in his direction, leaned up against his car. She was pale, more so than normal, and a light sheen of sweat on her brow suggested she might throw up. He tried a conversational tone, to possibly inject some humor into the situation, but his throat was dry, "So, I killed an alien after work..."

"Yeah, Dib, I can see that!" her tone was vicious and biting. Dib leaned away from her, even though she wasn't even close to him, "What the fuck! That is _not_ what I had in mind when you said you were gonna try to contact it!"

"Well, I panicked!" Dib said defensively, "He had a gun, he threatened to shoot at me, I panicked! And- hey, actually, I didn't even kill him, I just maimed him! You finished him off!"

"I was cleaning up your mess," Gaz hissed, pushing herself off the car and walking towards him, "What were we gonna do with a live alien you beat to within an inch of its life? It would have tried to kill us, or worse, contacted its people," she stopped when she was right in front of him, slamming her hands down on either side of his chair, "Guess what's gonna happen now, though? Now, its people are gonna wonder where it went, Dib. What are we gonna do when they come looking for it?"

"Um..." Dib swallowed, unable to make eye contact with Gaz as the horror dawned on him. She pushed off of his chair and exhaled heavily, pacing back over to the car. Dib stared at the concrete ground, his mind a hive of activity, unable to grasp a single thought. He leaned forward and grabbed for his trash can, throwing up. Gaz made a disgusted noise.

"You need to clean this up," she said, "And if I die because of you, I'm gonna be so pissed," and with that, she left the garage, slamming the door behind her. Dib stayed still for a few moments afterward, struggling to collect himself. From across the room, he heard a soft whirring start up, the same one from earlier. His eyes traveled to the ship first, and his gut bottomed out, worried sick that he would have to intercept some alien message now, of all times. He would have vomited again, but it wasn't the ship. The sound was coming from inside his car.

On shaky legs, Dib stood, and after gaining his balance, he crossed the garage. He hesitated for a moment, unwilling to even touch the door handle, but he forced himself to pull it open. His breath caught in his throat when he saw that Zim was twitching again, curling tightly in on himself as the contraption on his back whirred aggressively. He stared, transfixed, as his head began to reshape itself, ever so slowly, pushing out and reforming the skin that had been torn. Dib slumped quietly down to the ground, resigned to watch it happen, and powerless to stop it.

He didn't have it in him to cave Zim's head in a third time.

* * *

this whole scene was gonna go down differently. dib was going to comply with zim and bring him home, but i realized having zim stay complacent wouldn't make sense, considering his reckless attitude, and then that would be way out of character for dib if he was being threatened. anyway, yeah. i wanted to end with zim appearing dead, but it's no secret that he's not gonna die in chapter four, so that wouldn't have even been a cliff hanger.

i have the next part planned out, but i'm still unsure how to keep zim from just straight up murdering dib. maybe the original fight sequence i planned out for this scene will happen anyway! i certainly hope not.

whelp, anywho, i hope you enjoyed! thanks so much for reading, as always ^-^ i really really appreciate all the support!


	5. You Tried To Kill Me

wow, yeah, i'm sorry. i've been ill on and off recently, and work was really busy through october to early january, so i didn't even have time to write then. but lately i haven't been feeling like shit, and i've been having more days off, so i decided to buckle down and actually finish editing this thing. i know i've kept some people hanging for a long time, and i am genuinely very sorry. i hope this chapter is satisfactory! hopefully i can get my head together and have the next chapter up sooner, but even if it takes a few months again, know that i haven't abandoned this!

also, to the guest who suggested a security system: i honestly DID consider that, and i was part-way through writing out the scene in my head before i thought it might come off as being a little too easy, considering i hadn't written anything about a security system in their house before, and i didn't want to get him out of trouble using any elements i hadn't already introduced. thank you, though!

and thanks again for all the reviews and support, everyone! i really appreciate it. anyway, i hope you enjoy this chapter; it's a bit longer than usual, as an apology. as always, thanks for reading!

* * *

Dib sat motionless, slumped against the truck. After a moment, he noticed his glasses, laying forgotten on the driver's side, and almost out of sight under the seat. He picked them up gingerly and put them on, glad to be able to see clearly again, and as if comforted by their presence, his head began to clear, and he pushed himself up into a standing position, still watching Zim. It really was very interesting, watching Zim regenerate, and for a moment, he tried to imagine being Zim's friend, and what that might be like. He imagined being relieved that his new alien friend was healing so quickly.

Thinking like that, however, was starting to make him sick.

He started, instead, for his desk, suddenly remembering the gun he had tossed aside upon seating himself. He grabbed it and was about to turn back towards the car, but paused again when he saw his computer, his eyes lingering there as he wondered once more if he should call the Eyeballs. This was getting dangerous, and he wasn't sure if he could handle Zim on his own. He didn't want to get himself or Gaz killed. He knew he had to handle this carefully. Contacting anyone might be too risky, right now, and thinking about it was making his stomach turn again, so he resolved to deal with this later, when he could talk to Gaz about it.

He dismissed that train of thought, and grabbed his chair, dragging it over to the car, where he sat backwards on it. He pointed the gun at Zim, who was beginning to stir, even opening his eyes.

Dib's grip on the gun tightened. He was nowhere near ready.

...

Lights, fog, and nothingness. Zim was floating, high above everything, walking on air and surveying the ground far beneath him. It was the surface of Irk, from the perspective of someone in a ship, very high off the ground. There was no life on Irk's surface anymore, and there hadn't been for a very long time. Irkens tunneled, had tunneled for generations, and Zim could still remember being in the Academy, where they had briefly taught lessons about Irken history. He remembered sitting at a slate-grey desk in a small cubicle, surrounded on all sides by other students, each in their own cubicle, and trapped there until the end of the lesson.

He remembered feeling claustrophobic in that metal room, yearning instead for flight training; then he _was_ flying, travelling through space, and going so fast he felt his squeedly spooch twist in on itself, ready to evacuate his system of nutrients. He had a headache, and so abruptly forced himself to stop. The pain was getting worse and worse, but then-

Lights.

Fog.

Nothingness.

He didn't know where he was this time. He felt like he was in his ship, but everything was blurry and dark. When he opened his eyes, he was back on the Massive, working Security Detail. A rogue Vortian was loose on the ship, and Zim was hot on his trail; he was determined to succeed this time, determined to show his Tallest he could do something right. The Vortian led him through the weapons room, and Zim climbed into a war mech immediately. The scene began to melt and change, and now Zim was in a cell. He sat down on the ground and pressed himself into the furthest corner from the door, closing his eyes and pulling on his antennae.

Everything was static, and then everything was black.

Zim had a headache.

Like resurfacing too soon from an oxygen-based jelly, he began to cough and sputter, dislodging organic clogs in his respirators, and hacking up a dark green, viscous fluid. There was a film over his eyes, and so with a stiff limb, he reached up to tear it off, holding the sheddings in his palm and blinking a few times to refocus his oculars. He stared at the pale-red shreds for a few moments, and then dropped them, wiping his hands on his uniform. Slowly, his antennae began to function, twitching to life and feeding him sensory information, and when he surveyed his body, he found that he was covered in his own blood, and that there was a smooth, silver necklace that lay broken in his lap. His disguise. Zim raised a gloved hand to his throat, which was still raw on the inside and outside.

Abruptly, the situation dawned on him.

Zim whipped his head to the side and unlatched his seat belt as he very suddenly remembered his current predicament. Dib was resting on a chair positioned just outside of the earth vehicle's open door.

"_YOU TRIED TO KILL ME!_" Zim roared, and almost lunged at him, but stopped upon seeing his own gun in the human's filthy grasp, pointed directly at Zim's head. He sneered, drawing back only slightly, his entire frame still tensed to spring. He expected Dib to laugh, or gloat, or at least smirk. He had Zim at a disadvantage, and was surely victorious now. Zim would die, and it was what he deserved for letting his guard down in the first place.

All Dib did, however, was sigh tiredly.

"Can you even be killed?" Zim's head was pounding viciously, and he ignored Dib's question, ready to move the moment he let his guard down. Dib just watched him, expression sickly and weak. Pathetic. Perhaps Zim could simply disarm him now. He inched forward ever so slightly, and Dib thrust the gun towards him, straightening up in his seat. Zim narrowed his eyes, hissing, "Can you? If I shoot you in the head, will you die?"

"What do you think?" Zim spat venomously, almost shaking with rage. Dib's expression twisted slightly, as if this question disturbed him.

"Last night, I caved in your skull, and you were still alive. Then my sister practically reduced your face to a pulp," he said. Zim bristled at this reminder of yet another failure of his, as Dib was practically taunting him with it, but he said nothing, still staring intently at Dib, "You're still alive. What happens if I shoot you, do you- Do you even have a brain up there, or... Or is it-" here he gestured at Zim's back, presumably at his PAK, which was still whirring, working on repairing the leftover damage to Zim's nervous system. His headache was fading, but a subtle buzz was taking it's place as the nanobots went to work, and Zim was not sure which feeling he hated more. The buzzing made him itchy.

"Zim owes you no information," he said, voice low and dangerous. He could not remember ever feeling such an intense hatred towards anything before, as he did now for Dib, "Release me, or suffer a fate worse than death, human."

"What happens if I shoot you?" Dib asked again, his expression unchanged, and his tone insistent. Zim let out a frustrated hiss.

"I die," Zim snapped, "Happy now? If you shoot me in the head with that, I die," This information almost seemed to relieve Dib of some unknown stress, and though his posture seemed to relax slightly, his expression hardened.

"Then you're going to answer my questions," his voice had turned cold now, "Or I'm going to shoot," Zim's face split involuntarily into a wide, cruel grin, and he began to laugh, a horrible and hoarse sound that echoed in the garage.

"Go ahead, you wretched dirt child," he said around his laughter, hands moving to press against his eyes, "Shoot me. Shoot Zim and be done with it, or release him. He won't tell you anything. It doesn't matter either way to me," He removed his hands and turned to look at Dib, enjoying the way his face faded in through the static. Dib seemed to lose his confidence, the gun lowering a fraction of an inch for a moment. It wasn't long, just barely more than a second, but it was enough.

Zim launched forward and swiped at Dib's hand; he would have disarmed him, but Dib had already thrown himself backwards, knocking over his chair in the process. In a panic, Dib pulled the trigger. It was a quiet shot, one that might not have made any noise at all, if not for the small area in which the gun was fired, and Zim just barely ducked in time as a white hot beam of concentrated energy shot forth, missing Zim by mere centimeters, and burning a hole through the far wall. Zim glared and rushed to attack Dib again, but the gun was trained on him again, and though the human's eyes were wild with fear and lack of sleep, he did not fire. His chest heaved, and he watched Zim, who backed off slightly, leaning against the car and sliding to the ground. Dib stood, still breathing heavily, and waited. They let the silence stretch on.

"Okay, d-don't move... again," Dib said, clearly shaken, "I'm not afraid to shoot you."

"You aren't?" Zim taunted, almost laughing, and, his smirk fading, he shouted, "Then do it!" abruptly, he pushed himself across the ground, kicking Dib's feet from under him in one swift movement. As he fell, Zim hopped to his feet and deployed his PAK's spider legs, using them to propel him upwards so he could tower over Dib, who stared up at him from the ground in a horrified kind of awe, "HA! _See_? What did Zim say? As if you could-" As he spoke, Dib leveled the gun at him and pulled the trigger, firing off two rapid shots at Zim, who could hardly move fast enough to evade them both. Dib pushed himself to his feet and, while Zim was distracted, moved to the far side of the room to put some distance between them.

"Putrid, idiot, smell-beast!" Zim cried, whipping around and maneuvering about the room as Dib took pot shots at him, burning holes through the walls and ceiling of his garage, "Go ahead, KEEP FIRING!" he shouted, burning his arm when he could not move fast enough to dodge one of the blasts. He hissed and climbed to the ceiling, "You're only going to overheat the-" he cut himself off with a sharp cry of pain. One of the shots hit him square in the PAK, causing his spider limbs to automatically retract. This left him to fall the eight feet from the ceiling to the concrete floor.

He managed to twist in the air, so that he landed on his side rather than his damaged PAK, but the impact was still very painful, and on contact with the ground he heard a sickening crunch as he crushed his burned arm beneath him. He let out a yelp, but stayed motionless for only a moment before forcing himself to roll over into a low kneel. Dib was standing before him, aiming the gun directly at his forehead. Zim glared, a low growl building in his throat. His PAK was smoking and whirring loudly, almost groaning with the effort of keeping Zim's systems running.

"Listen, I don't- I don't want to kill you," Dib said, and his voice cracked. He swallowed. When he spoke next, his tone was almost as pleading as it was frustrated, "I just want- just answer my questions! Okay?" Zim did not respond, glowering in silence and cradling his injured limb to his chest. He was afraid to speak, for fear of sounding weak or showing pain. Dib made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, and waved the gun at Zim in frustration, "Please! I don't know what to do here-"

"Kill me," Zim said, voice hoarse, "This is what you do here. I've lost," his PAK sparked, and he gave an involuntary wince. It wouldn't heal him when it was this damaged. It went immediately to Power Saving Mode, and only the necessary functions were left online. Zim had lost, again, "Shoot me, and be done with it."

"Stop saying that!" Dib shouted, "I'm not- I can't do either of those things! You don't understand!"

"Idiot. Filth!" Zim let out a trail of curses in his native tongue, chirping and clicking aggressively. Dib was at a loss, and let him rant, unsure how exactly to stop him.

Rather abruptly, the door was kicked in, and both Zim and Dib whirled to look. It was Gaz.

"_What's going on in_-" Gaz stopped dead in her tracks, a bat held in a white-knucked grip, her eyes roving over the ruined garage, and the alien, who was very clearly still alive. Zim started at her entrance, and while the Dib-human was distracted, he pushed himself up and made a break for her. He ignored his injured limb, which flailed uselessly behind him, and he ignored his protesting legs, not made for such strenuous movements without the help of his PAK.

"Gaz, watch out!" Dib cried, but in the few seconds it took for Gaz to register what was happening, her expression had darkened drastically. She widened her stance, squared her shoulders, and when Zim lashed out at her, intending to knock her to the side and flee through the broken door, she swung her bat and hit him as hard as she could in the gut. His squeedly spooch protested violently, and Zim gave a wild cry of pain, falling in a heap to the ground.

He was unconscious. Dib's face split into a wide grin.

"Gaz, that was-" his celebrations were cut short when Gaz started for him next, dropping the bat and grabbing him roughly by the collar and pulling him down so that his face was very close to her own. He gulped, dropping the gun on instinct and raising his hands in a defeated gesture, "L-look, Gaz-"

"Quiet," she pushed him backwards roughly, and his legs, wobbly from frayed nerves and faded adrenaline, gave out. He fell to the ground. Gaz, who now towered over him menacingly, spoke through a grimace, her voice absolutely livid, "I don't want to hear your voice for a while," she picked up the gun, and Dib only watched as she took in the damage to the garage. He was only just seeing it himself, his panic from the fight now almost gone. His gut bottomed out as he surveyed the area, realizing that they had really wrecked the place. He swallowed again, taking in the charred holes in the walls, and the overturned boxes, their contents strewn everywhere. Gaz stamped out one of the boxes, which was on fire, presumably from a stray laser blast.

"I told you to clean it up," she said, a slight waver creeping into her otherwise monotone voice, "I told you to do one. Simple. Thing," she was not facing him, but still he didn't dare to move, "Clean up the alien," she went on, "All you had to do was get rid of its body, but no, you somehow screwed that up," she turned around suddenly, and Dib cowered when she started in his direction, but she instead marched past him, to Zim's prone body. She gave him a sharp kick to the head, sneering, "Why wont this thing just _die_?" she shouted, and kicked Zim again.

"G-Gaz-" Dib started, standing up, "Gaz, wait," she ignored him, but Dib started towards her anyway, worried for Zim's life in spite of himself, "Gaz, stop!" he reached out and tugged her arm, but she jerked it out of his grasp violently, spinning around to face him. He blanched, taking a step back as he took in her appearance. She looked awful, and for the first time in his life, Dib thought that she looked stressed. Tired. Panicked. Dib wasn't sure what to say.

"What?" Gaz spat, when Dib didn't speak, "You want me to spare it? You want to keep it as a _pet_?"

"No, I- it- he-" Dib sputtered, once again holding his hands up, "We can- use him! Learn from him, Gaz, just- just think about what you're doing, okay?" he was so close, he had come so far, and though he wanted desperately for Zim to disappear and be gone from his life, he knew he couldn't allow that. He couldn't back out now. Even if they destroyed everything, now that he could think straight, he knew that it would be no use. The aliens knew where they were now. Even if the ship disappeared, it didn't undo what he had done. It didn't change anything, even if Zim died.

He yearned to explain this to her somehow, to calm her down, but he didn't know how, and some part of him was sure that she already knew this anyway.

"Dib," Gaz started, and she still sounded violent, filled with rage, but she seemed to force herself to calm down. Her stance relaxed, though only slightly, "Listen," she stared up at him from under her bangs, and Dib had never felt worse than he had right now, "This thing is too dangerous to keep around. We have to get rid of it."

"Well- what are we gonna do with him?" Dib asked, steering her towards his chair, which lay overturned near the car. He stood it back up, "You've already seen that Zim can regenerate- how do we even know he can die?" he asked, wincing when she could not see, and though he technically wasn't lying to her, he still felt guilty for misleading her, after what Zim had told him earlier. He just didn't want her to kill Zim, and maybe it was out of some selfish curiosity, or maybe it was because he didn't want anybody to die. Either way, he just couldn't let it happen, and if Zim _did_ have to die, he didn't want Gaz to do it. He gestured to the chair, and Gaz plopped down into it, the space gun slack in her hand.

"Zim?" she said, and though she seemed tired, her tone was still irritated, "What, are you guys on a first name basis now?"

"Well-" he leaned against the car, sliding down to sit on the ground, "I mean-"

"I don't actually care," she interrupted him, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Right," they lapsed into silence. After a moment, Gaz exhaled, turning the gun over in her hands.

"If we can't kill it, we have to keep it prisoner somehow," she said, inspecting the weapon with what appeared to be a cold indifference, "We'll watch it in shifts, try to make it talk."

"I held a gun to it... his head, and he wouldn't tell me anything," Dib said dejectedly, gaze dropping to the papers scattered across the floor, "If we could somehow... make him contact his leader... tell them everything was okay..." Gaz snorted.

"Yeah right, and then what? We can't let it go," she rested her chin in her hand, and then huffed, "This is so stupid... This is so stupid!" she stood up, and started to pace, working herself up again, "Why'd you have to send those weird signals? Why'd I let you do that? Ugh!" she kicked the chair, and it toppled over noisily. On the floor, a few feet away, Zim lay unconscious, and unmoving. Her gaze seemed to linger on him, and her hold on the gun tightened. Dib looked from her to Zim and back again, and then he swallowed, though his throat felt dry.

"L-let's tie him up," he said quickly, pushing himself up from the ground and rushing to the trunk of the car, "I've- got some rope back here, in case of emergencies," he opened the trunk and began rummaging through his things hurriedly, "If it doesn't work, we can just-" he paused before saying 'we can just bash his head in again,' thinking better of it as he remembered the mood of the situation. He pulled the rope out of the mess in his trunk and slammed it shut, jumping when he saw that Gaz had moved silently to stand right next to him.

"We can just what?" she asked, watching him cross the garage to Zim's prone body.

"I- I don't know," he said, kneeling down to roll Zim over. He winced when he saw the wound across his temple, and the dark green blood that was streaming down his face. Dib had to suppress a shudder of revulsion, "Can you- can you help me?"

Gaz knelt down wordlessly and held Zim while Dib began tying him up. In the distance, they could hear police sirens blaring, growing slowly louder. Dib's head shot up, and he looked at Gaz worriedly.

"Do you think-"

"Yes," she said, her voice a low growl, "The garage is a disaster."

"M-most of the damage is-" Dib paused, looking around, "On the ceiling, and the back," he hurriedly finished tying Zim up, knotting the rope a few times for good measure, and hoping that he wasn't making it too tight, "We can probably just... send them away?"

"I didn't even know a laser battle was going on until I walked in," Gaz said, letting Zim go and pushing herself up, "It was probably the yelling that did it."

"No, there was... definitely a light show," Dib said, a knot of nervous tension forming in his gut as he remembered how many lasers he had shot through the roof and walls. The sirens were drawing closer, so he heaved Zim over to the car, opening the door to the back seat, "I'll put him in here..." he paused as he hefted Zim up into the car, noting the way the blood kept pouring out if his head, "The bleeding hasn't stopped yet. It- it didn't take this long before," he thought back to the bloody mess in the car, and how Zim's wounds had crusted over almost immediately, healing even faster once the contraption on his back had started whirring.

Whirring... The machine wasn't whirring.

"Who _cares_?" Gaz was saying, stomping towards the door as the sirens blared outside, red and blue lights flashing through the windows, "We have to deal with this-" she paused, and rushed back over to Dib, whirling him around and thrusting the gun she was still holding at him. He grabbed it on reflex, "Watch the alien. I'll handle this- you suck under stress, any-" she was interrupted by a pounding at the front door, and the police began shouting to announce their presence, "I'll send them away, just be quiet!"

With that she hurried away, flicking off the lights and slamming the door behind her.

At a loss, Dib merely stared after her for a moment. Then he turned back to watch Zim, setting the gun down absently.

Even in the darkened garage, lit only partially by the early-morning light filtering in through the windows, and the flashing police cars, he looked really terrible. His skin was growing pale, and the blood looked like it was starting to clot, but it was too slow. He'd healed much faster the other two times, and his machine had started healing him much sooner, too. Dib stayed silent, staring blankly at Zim. He was beginning to feel a certain sense of unreality, as if everything that had just happened wasn't actually real. It was just way too surreal, and it had all happened way too quickly. He reached out, hesitantly, and touched Zim's forehead lightly, shivering at how clammy it was. His skin felt tough, though, almost like fine-grained sandpaper, but when Dib pressed on it, it gave rather easily. Was it just because he was hurt? His eyes traveled to Zim's antennae, and he couldn't resist inspecting them. They were smooth; Hard, but flexible, just as Dib had thought they might be. It was almost like they were robotic, too. His expression tightening, Dib thought back to how Zim had so casually tore the shedding skin from his eyes, and wondered just how much of him was synthetic.

Worriedly, he inspected the wound again. It wasn't improving. Dib cursed, and, as a mild sense of panic set in, he moved to the trunk of his car and began searching around for his first aid kit. There was no way he was going to let an alien he'd just met- and the FIRST alien he had ever met- bleed to death in his car.

Once he'd found it, he returned to Zim and hastily fished around for the bandages, passing over the alcohol because he really didn't know if that would help, or make things worse. Maybe, once Zim had woken up, he would be able to tell Dib how best to treat the wound. Maybe his machine would start working again. For now, Dib wiped away most of the excess blood, and wrapped the wound on his head tightly with gauze. He then gathered the blood-soaked bandages he had used to wipe Zim's face, and took them to the trash can near his desk.

Things were quiet. He noticed that the police siren had been switched off, and the lights were gone. He felt a lot of nervous tension start to fade, and then spike up again. If they were gone, where was Gaz? Had they arrested her? Anxiously, he started to pace, and then walked quickly to the door, but before he could open it, Gaz came striding in, stopping short when she saw him.

"Gaz!" he exclaimed, taking a few steps back as she flicked the light on, "What happened, when did they leave?"

"A couple minutes ago? I don't know," she started for the car, and knelt down to pick up the gun he had set aside, "You cleaned it up?" she asked, pointing the weapon towards Zim.

"Wait, wait," Dib said, refusing to let this go, "What happened? How did you get them to leave?" Gaz raised an eyebrow, her expression wholly annoyed.

"I told them I was playing video games too loudly," she said, "When they asked to search the place, I asked if they had a warrant. They said no, so I showed them the door."

"That's... that's it?" Dib sagged slightly, unable to believe, after everything they'd been through with Zim, that it could be that easy. His body wanted very much to collapse, but he forced himself to stay upright, "They just left?"

"Yeah," Gaz said, exasperated, "They had a some questions, about the lights the neighbors saw, and about the shouting," she paused, turning to face the car, "I couldn't explain the stupid lights, so I just played dumb. They couldn't search the garage, anyway... Dib, we need to move this shit somewhere else."

"You think they'd get a warrant and come back?" Dib asked, the bottom dropping out of his stomach.

"Probably, I don't know!" Gaz shouted, kicking the car. Dib fell silent, watching her, unsure how to continue. After a moment, she whirled around towards him, "We can't keep this shit here anymore anyway, Dib! It's too dangerous!"

"I- I know that, but... I don't know where else to put it! How am I supposed to move the ship? I don't even know how to work it properly, a-and all of my research?" he ran a hand through his hair, yanking on it as he began to pace back and forth, "Him?" here he gestured wildly at Zim, and then paused, his heart stuttering when he noticed that Zim's eyes had cracked open, red slits visible against a pale green. He gaped for a moment, and then rushed over, "Gaz, look, he's awake!"

"Less pressing than our current situation, Dib!" Gaz shouted, "Why do you care so much if it's okay? We're fucked!"

Dib dropped down to his knees, kneeling so that he could look at Zim's face. His antennae were laid back flat against his head, and he stared back at Dib listlessly, almost as if he weren't fully aware of what was happening. Dib tried snapping his fingers a few times, trying to wake him up a bit more.

"Dib! Are you listening to me?" Gaz demanded loudly, and Dib started, glancing up at her.

"Y-yeah, Gaz, I know, things are really messed up, but if he's awake, he can tell me how to treat his-"

"I DON'T CARE! Oh my God, I don't care about that thing!" Gaz exploded, grabbing Dib roughly by the shoulders and twisting him around to look at her, "I care about our lives, Dib! Can't you contact those gross loners you're always yapping to?" Gaz asked, "They can help, right?"

"They," he paused, panic flaring up as he imagined yet again what might befall Zim if he contacted the Eyeballs. They didn't even know about the ship, "They'd take everything," he said despondently, looking pleadingly up at Gaz, "The ship, the research, they'd take everything. They'd make it public, they'd showcase Zim, they might even-" he tried not to go on to say 'they might even kill him,' because he new it would only make Gaz angry. He swallowed.

"We have to do something," Gaz's tone had darkened, and she frowned at him, "I'm serious, Dib. We can't keep this here." With her free hand, she wiped at her forehead, and then let out a slow exhale, "I'm going to go to bed. If they're going to get a search warrant, we should have a few days to figure this out. You do whatever you want," she tossed the gun to him, and he caught it on reflex, "We'll figure something out tomorrow."

She left the room, closing the door one final time. Dib assumed, then, that he had first watch.

Dib sat for a long time in silence, and then turned to look at Zim, who was staring at the roof of the car now, eyes half open. He inched over, waving his hand in front of Zim's face, and sighing in relief when Zim's features twisted in annoyance.

"Stop," Zim said, almost too quietly to hear, but Dib, who had been listening raptly anyway, obeyed, drawing back.

"I'm just- glad your awake, I guess," he said, and was about to continue, but Zim gave a weak snort.

"You would be," Zim said. His words were slow, and a tad spaced out, as if he were enunciating very carefully. He hefted out a sigh, "Zim doesn't care."

"R-right," Dib said, chagrined, "Can, um, can you tell me how to fix you?"

"'Fix' Zim?" his antennae perked slightly, and then Zim burst out laughing, a loud and harsh sound that chilled him slightly. Dib stayed silent as Zim's laughter slowly died down, and he eventually sighed again, "No."

"No?" Dib asked. Moments passed, and Zim did not respond, "You're not, uh, healing right, though. Aren't you supposed to be repairing yourself right now?"

"You shot Zim's PAK," Zim said, "He can't regenerate until he repairs it."

"O-oh! I didn't know, I just- You were climbing all over the place, so I-" he cut himself off, and then began rubbing the back of his neck nervously, "Will you- heal naturally?"

"Yes," Zim said, blinking very slowly, "Zim's organic body should eventually heal," he sneered, "but it will heal wrong. Zim can feel it now. I am getting sick."

"Are you going to die?" Dib asked. Zim didn't respond right away, and then turned his head slowly to look at Dib.

"You tried to kill me," he said. Dib cringed, glancing around the room anxiously.

"I didn't... _want_ to kill you. I didn't want any of this to happen, I just- I was scared! You had a weird... _space gun_, okay? You attacked me, I was just gonna threaten you, but you scratched me, and I just-" he waved his arms around, seemingly at a loss for how to explain himself. Zim was unmoved, "I was really scared," he said again, "Okay, you look kind of scary without your disguise! Which I broke. Sorry. Or, actually maybe Gaz broke it, but. Okay, it doesn't matter!" he said quickly, "I'm sorry. This is all a huge mess, and I screwed up, a lot, like usual, but I don't want you to die!" Zim's expression darkened.

"You just don't want to feel responsible for it," Zim said, eyes narrowing.

"Wh-what, no! I don't want you to die, period!" he said, waving his arms around again, "Look, I didn't let Gaz kill you, right?"

"You said it, though. You're the reason I'm here," Dib paused, expression frozen in place as he thought back to their meeting in the parking lot. Slowly, he lowered his hands, "So, if I die here, you think it's your fault."

"Well, y-yeah," he said quietly, looking down to the ground, "That's true, but..."

"If Zim had come here for other reasons..." Zim went on, turning his head to look at the roof of the car again, "And you had captured Zim... in the same way you have captured him now. If Zim told you he was dying, you would be relieved."

Dib was horrified at himself. He knew that Zim was right. If Zim had come to earth for any other reason; if Dib had never sent out a broadcast, but Zim had showed up anyway, he would have aimed to kill before he had asked questions. He would have taken Zim's body to the press, would have warned the public about the alien menace endangering the planet. He would have sat in the front row at Zim's dissection, but because Dib had brought Zim here, even though the entire planet was still in danger, even though his family was in danger, Dib couldn't act. He was frozen.

"Oh," he said, his voice barely audible, "Yeah, you're right. I would have... just assumed you were hostile. Huh," he sat back, the sudden clarity causing his panic to ebb away, "I mean... You probably are a huge danger to humanity. I just..." he paused, thinking over it again and again, even though he already knew the answer. Every time, it ended the same, with him trying to kill Zim, "But, because I brought you here, if humanity is destroyed, that's my fault, too," he said, swallowing. Somehow, he still couldn't wrap his head around it, but he knew the earth must be in some kind of trouble, "So... Zim, will you answer my questions?"

Zim made a few rapid clicking noises, perhaps cursing again, though it sounded like someone winding up an old clock to Dib. There was a moment of silence, and then he gave a quiet groan.

"Sure."


	6. Hopelessly Compromised

_i'm not completely happy with this chapter, but i'd rather just get it out there than make anybody wait any longer. i'm getting to the part of the story i really want to write, i'm a bit excited about some of the events coming up, and i just need to get this chapter out there and move on. i'm sorry for how long it took, i've got a seriously shitty brain._

_anyway- chapter START!_

* * *

Dib couldn't believe it. A wide grin threatened to split across his face, but he held it at bay, trying to keep his excitement in check as he kept in mind the serious tone of their conversation. About a million questions must have run through his mind in that moment, and he was having trouble sorting through them to find the ones that were most important, or the ones that he was most curious about.

"Okay, so..." he paused, trying to collect his thoughts, "So... in the car, before all of, uh... this happened," here he gestured vaguely around himself, at the surrounding disaster, "You mentioned that I had Irken technology? Is that what your people are called? Irkens?" Zim's expression tightened, like he didn't want to answer, but he eventually gave a terse nod. Dib nodded too, "Okay. Why are you here, then? I mean, I know why, but what were your intentions, I guess?" Zim grimaced, but then heaved a sigh.

"It was just an extraction mission," he said, tone deflated, "You have an Irken-made ship. I was sent to investigate and reclaim it. That's it," Dib nodded again, stomach plummeting as he realized the mess he had made was entirely unnecessary.

"Alright, thanks," he paused from nerves, and then went on, "What happens now, though?" Zim's expression split into a weak smirk.

"Now you die," he said, "Your sister-thing dies. Your friendly-things die. Your planet dies. Everything dies."

"What do you mean? All because I attacked you?" Dib asked, anxiety spiking, and Zim snorted out a laugh, wincing when some unknown injury pained him.

"Your planet was doomed when we found out there was a ship here," Zim went on, and Dib was surprised that he had decided to explain, "It is still your fault, though, yes."

"It's not like we stole it, though!" Dib exclaimed, and stood up, beginning to pace back and forth, "We didn't do anything, it just showed up here! I just happened upon it, and I wanted- I've wanted to talk to- my entire life has been dedicated-" he rubbed at his eyes in irritation, and then stopped and looked at Zim, who was clearly enjoying his turmoil, "I was basically letting you know where it is, that's like helping you!"

"Yes, thank you for helping us find your planet," Zim said in a mocking tone, "Good job, full marks, fun times for all."

"Shut up!" Dib snapped, and seated himself again, "What am I supposed to do about this?"

"Are you asking Zim?" Zim blinked, and looked again at the roof of the car, "He thought you just told him to shut up."

"I'm serious!" Dib said, panic leaking into his voice, "I thought- I don't know, I thought I could just patch you up and maybe you'd eventually agree not to kill me, and then I could give you the ship and you'd leave us in peace?" Zim was already laughing before Dib had even finished speaking, and Dib let out a frustrated noise, "Why do you even have to destroy the planet?" Zim's face twisted slightly in confusion.

"Zim doesn't understand the question," he said, and Dib only looked at him for a moment.

"Why do you have to destroy it?" he repeated, "You guys didn't know about us before, things could just go back to how they were!"

"Of course not," Zim scoffed, "We're already here. Besides, your filthy race wasn't being productive with this system anyway, so we'll make it useful, or we'll get rid of it. It just makes sense."

"No, it doesn't! You said everything was going to die!"

"Oh yeah, definitely," Zim said nonchalantly, nodding, "I can't see us finding any use for this pitiful dirt ball and it's disgusting inhabitants."

"How can you be so casual about this?" Dib shouted, throwing his hands up in frustration, "This is my home- this is an entire planet we're talking about! What am I supposed to do?"

"There's nothing you can do," Zim said, and though his expression seemed triumphant, his tone held a shadow of some sad emotion Dib couldn't quite place, and wasn't even sure he heard, "There's no military force equal to the Armada in the known Universe. Once we decide what to do with this planet, there's no stopping it. If you're enslaved, you should consider yourself lucky to be conquered by such an amazing Empire," Dib didn't respond, instead burying his face in his hands. If this was true, they would have to evacuate the planet. He was going to have to go to the Eyeballs with this- it was officially too serious for him to handle on his own. Looking back, he supposed it always had been.

"How long do we have?" He asked, defeated. There was a beat of silence, and then Zim shifted slightly.

"Eh... probably a while," Zim said dismissively, and Dib perked up. He had expected Zim to say that the Armada was on their way right that very second, and that he had better hurry, "More than a few weeks, at least. Probably more like, I dunno. A month? Months? Years? Or maybe it will happen tomorrow. Who cares."

"I care very much, actually!" Dib said, glaring at Zim, "Can't you give me a better estimate? Like, based on... past experience?" Zim leveled him with an irritated stare.

"Why not," he said, but his tone was dripping with sarcasm. Then, to Dib's surprise, he went on, "It's going to be more like a few months before they make any moves, unless something has changed back at base. That's probably not enough time for you to do anything, though."

"What would need to change for them to move faster?" Dib asked. Zim paused, his mouth drawn into a tight line, and Dib really thought he wasn't going to answer this time. He was about to ask something else when Zim spoke up.

"Reassignment of my mission," he said, as if he were admitting something very shameful, "Or dismissal of the mission, in the event that it has been hopelessly compromised."

"Hopelessly compromised... like right now?" Dib asked, and Zim just smirked, "There's no way for them to find out, though," he said quickly, hoping rather than knowing that this was true. Zim didn't respond, which was somehow more troubling for Dib. He shifted nervously, glancing around himself in paranoia, as if another Irken might jump out at him from the shadows of the rafters.

After a moment, he looked at Zim, to find that the alien had once again stopped paying attention to him. He sifted through his questions again, deciding to change the subject.

"So... the signal I was sending out," he began, and Zim did not acknowledge or prompt him to continue, but Dib went on anyway, "What was it, anyway?"

"It was a distress signal," Zim said flippantly, and almost right away, giving Dib the impression that this was not at all sensitive information, "When a ship crashes on a planet with an un-logged bio-signature, the ship automatically locks up and will only send distress signals, no matter what buttons are pressed. That is, unless it's pilot contacts someone directly, or performs a manual override."

"So... do you... do you know how to unlock it?" Dib asked tentatively, and Zim turned to look at him now, antennae perking slightly.

"If you untie Zim, he will unlock it right now," Dib knew better, but the offer still tempted him, despite his better reasoning. He smirked.

"Yeah, right. I'd have you tell me, so I could do it myself," he said, and Zim turned away again, antennae returning to their former, slicked-back position, "I'm guessing that means you're not going to explain it for me?"

"You're too stupid, anyway," Zim snapped, "You wouldn't understand how to work the ship if Zim spent weeks teaching you."

"Hey, I modified those cameras, didn't I?" Dib shot back, and Zim narrowed his eyes.

"Yes. You did. They're messy and unstable," Zim sneered. Dib sat back, crossing his arms, "I'm surprised they didn't blow up on you already. What did you do, yank wires right out of the ship?"

"No! Of course I didn't do that," Dib said defensively, though his face began to feel hot, "There were... electronic devices under the seat. I messed around with those until I knew what they did, and then I took them apart to... see how they worked," Zim had started snickering, "What, that's not impressive?"

"They were probably toys or something, so no, it's not," Zim said, "Give one of those cameras a shake, then throw it on the ground, see what happens."

"No!" Dib blanched, "Wha-why? What would happen?" Zim merely laughed, so Dib decided on a subject change, cursing himself for falling for that obvious trick. He then shook away the thought that it wasn't just a trick, "S-so, that thing on your back. You called it a PAK?" Zim's expression once again became tight-lipped and cautious, but Dib forged on anyway, incredibly curious, "It's... it heals you, I've seen that, so is it just like... some kind of life monitor?"

"Zim refuses to answer any questions about his PAK," he sneered, and if he had a nose, Dib imagined he would have turned it up in disgust, judging by his tone, "That's none of your filthy, Earth-thing business."

"So it's more than a life monitor, right? Otherwise you'd probably tell me more," Dib said, grinning, and Zim's expression darkened.

"Zim would tell you nothing either way!" he fumed, but Dib smirked.

"Please, you told me when to expect a planetary invasion, but you won't tell me about a machine on your back?" he rolled his eyes in an exaggerated gesture that he was pleased to see infuriated Zim even further, "It's gotta be something more important than a health monitor."

"Zim was lying!" he shouted, his face turning a darker shade of green, "None of that information was absolute, he was saying it to confuse you!"

"Yeah, sure he was- I mean. Sure _you_ were," he said, and then, "Why do you do that, anyway?"

"What? Create elaborate and clever _lie webbing_ that ensnares and confuses?" he snapped, his sharp teeth clacking together into a very unsettling grin.

"N-no," Dib said, "No, not that. I mean how you always switch from first person to second person, when you're talking about yourself."

"I am only one person," Zim said, grin fading into a look of confusion, "Zim doesn't understand."

"No, see- right there, you just did it."

"Zim is unclear."

"You're doing it right now!"

"Silence!" Zim said, raising his voice and causing his throat to rattle. He went into a short coughing fit then, flecks of dark green splattering onto the back of the front seat. Dib quieted, watching in detached concern as Zim collected himself, "This is pointless. Foolishness. If you have no more questions for Zim, please leave him be. Or, you could kill me and be done with this pitiful nonsense," Dib paused, steepling his fingers.

"I really want to answer that seriously, but you just did it again."

"Speak no more to Zim! He is through with you!" Zim suddenly shouted, and as if to emphasize this, he turned his head away sharply, so that he was no longer looking in Dib's direction, but at the far window in the car, "Through!" he shouted again, and Dib snorted out a laugh.

"Oh come on, seriously?" he waited, but Zim didn't respond, so he prodded him once, lightly. Besides scooting away from him, Zim did not acknowledge him further, so Dib hummed and sat back, "Alright, fine, I'll be serious. I guess I'm still dealing with the fact that you're an alien. I- ...I mean, I'm kind of... obsessed with supernatural things. Maybe that's why I trusted you so quickly. I just. Wanted to believe we could be friends," he paused, suddenly very embarrassed, "Ugh, oh my god. Ignore that I said that."

Zim didn't respond. Chances were, he was tuning Dib out at this point, and he hadn't heard him anyway. Well, good. The last thing Dib needed was for him to be even _more_ disgusted.

"Right," he paused, and stood up, "If you need me, I'll be at my desk. Um," he waited there for a moment longer, but Zim's only movement was to lean his head against the seat behind him, so he closed the car door, "Right," he repeated quietly, to himself this time. He stood in the silent garage, looking around himself at the mess they'd made and thought about cleaning some of it up. He couldn't deal with it, though. Not now. He instead moved to his desk, steeled himself, and began converting the video from the micro camera into a format he could send over the Eyeball's secure line. He yawned, glancing at the clock to see that it was just after six in the morning.

Good lord, he had been awake all night. He grabbed his cell phone from his pocket, and dialed work. There was no way he was going in today, not after everything that had happened. Not with everything that still had to be done. With a nervous jolt, he realized that he might actually end up saving the world, and he spoke with a slight waver to his voice when his manager got on the line. Well, saving it from a danger _he_ had brought, anyway. Still, it almost seemed like they would have eventually found the planet anyway, since someone had crashed their ship there, and he had only sped up the process.

This didn't make him feel any better.

Something cold and very sharp was suddenly pressed against the back of his neck, right at the base of his skull. He paused mid-sentence on the phone, choking on his words. He hadn't heard the car door open, had Zim somehow snuck up on him? If he had, what was the hold-up? Why wasn't he dead right now? A quiet voice he didn't recognize spoke up from behind him.

"No, no, keep talking," it said, and the metal object, which was probably the end of a knife, nudged him, "Act normal."

"U-um," he stuttered. His manager was questioning him on the other end.

"Is everything alright, Dib? You said you couldn't come in today?" a cold sweat broke out over his skin as he struggled to answer the question, but his throat was dry, and he couldn't breathe properly. Where was Gaz? Was she okay? "Dib? Dib, are you there?" The stranger nudged him again.

"Come on, finish your call," they said, and their voice didn't sound threatening at all, but it startled Dib anyway, "Then hang up."

"R-right," Dib said, forgetting that his manager could hear him too, "Um, yes, sir, everything is fine, I just- the stove is on fire-" he winced, and would have hit himself, if he weren't afraid to move, "So, actually, everything isn't fine, um- yes. Okay, I have to go," he said quickly, before his boss could answer, and when he hung up, he almost dropped his phone in the process. He quickly shoved it in his pocket.

"Awesome! Now, I'm going to back up, and then you can turn around," the knife was removed, and Dib swivelled his chair around slowly, "Yeah, that works. Okay. Good."

A stout Irken stood before him. They looked eerily similar to Zim, though they were slightly taller, and much wider. They had the same unsettling eyes, though they seemed much sadder, the same zipper-toothed grin, though it was much smaller, and the same green skin, though theirs seemed to be a tad darker. Their antennae, which were on the shorter side, were perked straight up, and rather than the red uniform Zim wore, they wore one that was slate grey and blue, and one of the long, metal legs he had seen Zim use was protruding from their back. It began to recede as Dib watched, horror struck, and the Irken held out a gun like the one Zim had used. The one Dib had left beside the car. The one that was in the Irken's other hand.

Again, Dib felt the urge to hit himself.

"Yeah, you're under arrest. Sorry about this," they began, not sounding sorry at all, or as intimidating as they had originally, either, "I've been kind of incapacitated! Otherwise, none of this would have happened," here he gestured around at the mess and destruction in the garage, to Dib's confusion, "Fortunately, I can skip a lot or the formalities, since you already know what I am, and just get right to the part where I take you, your sister, and your prisoner here back to our ship."

"Wh-what, no, w-wait-"

"Don't worry, you won't be harmed," they said, "I mean, unless you resist. Then you'll be harmed a little bit. If you try to run, you'll be harmed a lot."

"W-we-we can talk about this!" he said, trying to stall as he thought of ways to contact the Eyeballs without this Irken noticing, but they stepped closer, grin slipping slightly, and Dib knew reason wasn't going to work. He had failed before he had even begun.

"Sorry, but no, we can't," they said, and yanked Dib up into a standing position. Dib stiffened as he was abruptly turned around, and his hands were immobilized by large, heavy cuffs. He was steered towards the car, and he turned to face the Irken as they moved towards the ship. They laid a hand on it, and then tugged the sheet off, sighing with relief, "I was worried you might have taken it apart. The Captain would have had my head if you did," here they turned around, and their face looked so sad that Dib wondered how they could possibly be part of the bloodthirsty Armada Zim had told him about, "I can be kind of a screw up. I mean, look at me! It's pretty obvious, right?"

"U-um," Dib wasn't sure if he should speak or not, but the Irken didn't seem to need an answer. They turned their attention back to the ship, and opened the hatch, "Wh-where's Gaz?" he asked, still incredibly anxious about her safety. The Irken didn't even glance at him, preoccupied with the controls in the ship. He made a short series of clicks, and then began to answer.

"She's asleep, so I just relocated her to Zim's ship. She had a creepy room, by the way. Anyway, Zim's ship was a lucky find, too bad it's such an old model. Hopefully the Captain will- er, well, you probably don't need to know that," they said, glancing over with a nervous grin, and then turned back to the console. A weight had lifted from Dib's chest, though, and he let out a quiet sigh. Gaz was okay.

"What's going to happen to us?" he asked, once again glancing at his computer. This Irken seemed really distracted, probably performing the manual override Zim had told him about, "Neither of us care about the ship, so you can have it, we won't try anything. We'll just pretend like you were never here!"

"Yeah, I wish I could just leave you two here... I mean, the Voot has only so much leg room... and it's going to be an uncomfortable ride back for me too, with a sleeping human tied up in the back," Dib edged towards his computer. The conversion had finished, all he had to do was send it to the Eyeballs. If he could even just open up a line with any of them, he might be able to warn them. If they could just see what was happening... The Irken continued, "I'll put you and Zim in the other ship and tow it behind me. I'd put Zim in my ship, but, well..." they just didn't want to, judging from their tone. Dib continued to inch along silently towards his desk, "and you seem like you could be dangerous. You're timid, but," here, they paused, and a metal leg shot out to block Dib from moving any further. He lurched backwards and looked at them, "Yeah," they said, knocking him back towards the car. He hit the hood roughly and fell over onto the ground, grunting in pain when he landed, "I don't want you in my ship."

Dib wanted to say that it didn't make sense to put the two more dangerous captives together, but with Zim incapacitated as he was, and Dib not having even the slightest idea how to read or understand Irken, he had to admit that it wasn't a bad plan. It was a gamble, but it wasn't bad. He struggled to his knees and braced himself against the car as he stood, grimacing with the effort. Was he really this out of shape? The Irken had turned their attention back to the ship, and was now clicking at the console as a robotic voice clicked and chirped back. His heart thrummed. Could they be talking to another Irken? Someone higher up in command, perhaps? Could they be discussing right now how exactly they were going to deal with he and Gaz?

Or, maybe it was the ship itself. Anxiety swirled in his gut, and he watched the Irken hit a few more buttons, and then climb out of the ship.

"Okay! We can probably go now," they went to Dib's desk first, and grabbed the micro camera that had been sitting out. They inspected it closely, making the occasional appraising noise, "You used elements from... let's see," suddenly, they shook the camera violently for a moment, and it started to beep rapidly, "Oh, wow. Clever. Very multifunctional. Did you mean to do that?"

"Um... yes?" he said, sounding incredibly unsure. The Irken beamed at him anyway, not seeming to notice his tone. He felt a sense of pride at this, despite himself.

"I'm gonna need to talk to you about this later," they said, and then tucked the camera away into a pouch on their uniform. They started for Dib, and spun him around.

"H-hey, what are you-?" he cut himself off as they began to search him, emptying his pockets. He really hadn't been carrying much, just two more micro cameras, his cell phone, and a pen. The Irken confiscated everything, and told him he could turn back around.

"How many more of these cameras did you make?" he asked, holding one of them up. The others had, presumably, already been pocketed.

"Um," he thought about the stash he had hidden in a compartment below his desk, where there were at least five more, and also of the one Zim had stolen. He didn't want to lose any of them, but if he never got back to Earth, he'd rather have them where he could steal them back, "There's... five more in the bottom drawer of my desk... over there. Yeah," the Irken had crossed to his desk, and opened the drawer, "Under all of the papers, there's a false bottom."

"Thanks for being so cooperative!" they said, as they tucked the rest of the cameras away in their uniform, and grabbed his laptop as an afterthought, "Now, I need you to walk forward, towards the ship," Dib did as he was told, and stopped when he was close, "Now climb in. And don't get any ideas," they said quickly. Dib paused to glance over at them, already in mid-climb, "All of the controls are locked, and it's DNA imprinted, so neither of you can interfere with it," They watched Dib, who was now even more disheartened, climb into the ship and seat himself in the one chair, "Alright," they said, and seemed to brace their self, "Now for Zim."

Zim was far less compliant than Dib had been. He refused to be roused from his seat at first, and to the Irken soldier's surprise, it seemed that he had fallen asleep. They whistled as they pulled a struggling Zim from the car, wincing as they inspected his messy bandages and scorched PAK. Dib glanced away, assuring himself that he had acted in the best way at the time, and otherwise he would have been in even more danger. He had done the best that he could. Zim's clicks and chirps grew louder and more belligerent the closer they were to the ship, and it only served to confuse Dib. Wasn't this a comrade of his?

The soldier was clicking and chirping as well, attempting to pacify Zim, but it wasn't working, and something wasn't clicking in Dib's head. Was Zim so delirious that he couldn't recognize another Irken when he saw one? Was Dib wrong, and this was a species who looked Irken, but wasn't actually of the same race? Perhaps a chameleon type alien, or something? He wanted to ask, but wasn't sure if he would be heard over Zim. When the soldier was near enough, they huffed, and heaved Zim into the cockpit, where he laid, face-first on the ground and silent, apparently defeated.

"You really did a number on him," the Irken said, "I knew he was injured, but his PAK looks fried! I'll have to get him support as soon as we get back to the ship, power saving mode will work, but it won't last forever, and he's lost a lot of, uh. Blood," they said, seeming like they needed to search for the right word for a moment.

"Why isn't he complying?" Dib asked, unable to help himself, and completely ignoring their comments about Zim's injuries, "Aren't you guys on the same team? You followed him here as reinforcements, right? I'm being arrested," the Irken barked a laugh, shaking their head. They scratched at their nearly non-existent neck for a moment, seeming particularly tickled by Dib's question.

"Oh no, no, we're not, uh, no," they said, laughing again, "I mean yes, you are being arrested, but Zim and I aren't-" Zim, seeming to regain some strength for a brief, shining moment, surged to his knees and glared at Dib, clearly livid.

"ZIM WOULD NEVER BE ON THE SAME "_TEAM_" AS A NO-GOOD, VORTIAN-BLUE TRAITOR," he screeched, "HE IS VILE, TREACHEROUS FILTH, A STAIN ON THE GOOD EMPIRE'S NAME, AND NOT WORTH THE DISGUSTING, _FFILTHY_ OXYGEN HE ABSORBS!" his voice had cracked several times, and with a final, frustrated sound, he fell back to the ground, where he was silent once again. Flecks of green blood were clinging to Dib's shirt, and he looked up, staring wide-eyed at the Irken soldier before him, who looked particularly nonplussed.

"Yeah, all of that," he said after a moment, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, "I guess I should introduce myself," He cleared his throat, and straightened his back importantly, "Private First Class Skoodge of the Resisty Army, at your service!"Dib stared for a moment, and then Skoodge laughed again, "Well, not really. You're my prisoner, so. You're at my service... Anyway!"

He lifted his hand in a lazy wave, and then abruptly slammed the cockpit shut.

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_THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING! i seriously appreciate all of the support this story has had, thank you to everyone who has reviewed. i hope you enjoyed this chapter!_


	7. They Broke The TV

so, i'm a little worried this chapter might disappoint some people, but i really wanted to write it to expand on tak. i love tak, and my interpretation of her might be a bit more volatile than the one in the show, but i hope she doesn't seem too different. this chapter gets very violent, by the way, and there are a few graphic descriptions of violence, so be prepared for that. i don't think it's bad enough to upset anybody, though.

anyway, i hope nobody gets too bored with this chapter, and if you do, i hope you can slog through it until dib and zim are the main focus again next time! ;w; thanks for reading, and thank you so much for the reviews! i'm so glad people are enjoying this. i really enjoy writing it

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Currently floating in the Earth's atmosphere was a sleek and small crescent-shaped ship. It was purple and pink, as were most Irken ships. Appearing to be entirely unobtrusive, this ship was actually a Spittle Runner Dash 2, outfitted with the latest in Irken weaponry, and still light enough to outstrip almost any ship in the Armada's vast army. It was bested only by the Dash Elite, which was reserved for soldiers in the Tallest's Armada, all of which were revered as the best and most deadly pilots in the known universe.

Tak thought they were child's play compared to her.

She was incredibly bitter, but that wasn't anything she hadn't known already, and it didn't mean she was any less right. To be Irken meant you were cold, ruthless, and infinitely cunning. In order to claw her way back into the Irken Army's ranks, Tak had shown more of each of these traits than any Irken she had ever come into contact with. What separated her from the rest, she pondered, must have been her intellect and competence. Many Irkens in the lower ranks made more mistakes than were excusable, and many were discarded as fodder, as they should be. It was all they were good for. Tak, however, was always calculating, always striding forward as quickly as she could, all while still carrying a perfect soldier's march. Unfortunately for her, she could not be a soldier. Not even an Invader, possibly one of the more coveted roles, the doorway into the Armada. She had never completed her training in the academy, never finished the final test that she would have passed easily, and it was the single blemish on her perfect record, the single thing keeping her from reaching her goal.

She sat back in her chair, sneering at the planet before her. _Her_ planet. The planet that could change everything for her. If she conquered this, perhaps she had another chance. Perhaps she could leave the filthy testing labs behind to rot, and her pathetic co-workers, all failures who did not even have the excuse of missing the exam, _would_ rot, if she ever had anything to say about it. They were begging for Correction, begging for Deletion. She could not report them without condemning their entire team, including her, to Correction, but when she got out of there, she would see to it that they got what they deserved. She would get what she deserved, too, she was sure of it. All would be right, in due time.

It was lucky, really, that she had been the one to intercept the rogue ship's message, for it had been pure coincidence that she had been floating through the third sector near the border, once again ruminating on her pitiful station. Her Tallest had chosen to keep the mission secret, for no Irken vessel should have been out past the borders of Irken space, and in the interest of keeping the bare minimum of soldiers involved, they had chosen her to Inform the Irken soldier of his mission, waiting a light year outside of the borders. Tak had rallied for Zim, of course, because she had known he would screw it up, and had used the reasoning that if he died out there, at least they wouldn't have to deal with him anymore, and they could always reassign his mission. Zim was a disgrace, after all, and the only reason the Tallest kept him around was for a laugh. They gave him a benign station, sent him on tasks of little importance, and somehow he still managed to make a mess of things more often than not. It was baffling, really, how he had passed his exams so perfectly. She supposed he was just another Imperfection, maybe even a Defective, with no hope of ever improving. Though, according to his record he had only been sent to Correction a handful of times, another thing Tak would put right when she was of a higher rank. She couldn't believe the higher ups were so unconcerned about incompetence. _She_ wouldn't have it.

There were many things Tak ached to correct, given the opportunity, many things she wanted to be in charge of, and many Irkens she wanted to crush. Up until now, it had all been a fantasy. She let her head fall to her hand, inspecting the planet before her with piercing eyes. It was just another thing in her way.

The monitor on the console suddenly gave an alert, and her eyes flickered down as text covered the screen. Looks like Zim's ship was on the move, heading towards a native residential area. She tapped the screen twice, rapidly, and it brought up a gridded map of his coordinates. His little dot was making progress across the screen, and she watched it idly as she prepped the engines. If he was on the move, then he had either found something, or he had been discovered, the latter being the more likely option. Either way, Tak was going to meet up with him, perhaps to gloat, or just to watch. She wasn't sure yet, but the makings of a speech were beginning to form at the back of her mind, and as she took off, she decided that, if she got the chance, it was too good to waste.

Entering the atmosphere was simple, just a matter of activating the cloak and letting the ship do all the work. It was already undetectable to foreign frequencies, the jammers slaved over by Vortian scientists were universally integrated into all Irken ships. Of course, the older models didn't have this feature, which is why Zim ran into trouble, no doubt. Her Tallest had not divulged the full extent of his shameful performance to her, but she had been tracking his coordinates earlier, too, and had watched his little dot enter her grid, had readied herself for a frustrating conversation, then had watched as he continued, moving far too quickly to stop. She had smiled and known that she was going to succeed with flying colors. This was when Tak had contacted Her Tallest, pretending that Zim had not just flown by her, and wondering if, maybe, they would consider her for this mission instead. It would be a far better use of resources, after all.

It _was_ a far better use of resources. Tak's ship slowed, and she descended smoothly to cruise over the rooftops of primitive earth dwellings. Creatures who called themselves humans lived here, all clumsy and stupid. Their race was still young, and though they had some things that resembled technology, they were nothing compared to Irk. Just dirt caked on the soles of her boots. She steadied up and hovered, only a few feet from his ship, which was cloaked this time, and not as an Earth vehicle, either. It was parked in the driveway of an Earthling's home. A grin split her features. Had Zim somehow pulled it off after all, and tracked down the stray vessel? Why else would he be infiltrating an Earth home? If this was the case, Tak supposed that is was a pity he had finally come through when nobody would ever hear about it. After all, she was not about to let him reclaim her mission and steal this chance right out from under her, but she'd have to at least thank him for doing all the work for her.

She parked her ship in the yard and crept out silently, heading for the front door of the Earthling home. The front door was locked, but she was able to force it open with a laser from her PAK legs, quick and quiet, though the noise the door made when it hit the inside wall had her hissing. She hated making mistakes, no matter how little. It seemed that no one had heard her, and as she closed the door behind her, she raked the room with her eyes, and listened intently for any noises. To her right, she sensed a struggle, and listened at the door. That was Zim's voice, unmistakably. She recognized that shrill moron anywhere, yet there was another that she could not place, but who sounded familiar. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but what set her teeth on edge was that this person was speaking Irken, and that could only mean one of two very unacceptable things. It was either someone who had lifted an Irken ship, or an Irken who had gone rogue. She had suspected either, but the bitter venom in her spooch was telling her it was the latter. She hadn't thought she would find them so quickly. Here it all was, though, all laid out for her like a present. Zim, the ship, and the rogue, all in one place. She waited, listening to two voices speak in English, and then as Zim started screaming in English, only to fall into an abrupt silence. She'd heard him say traitor, and knew she was right.

She waited, heard a ship slam shut, and then opened the door of the room slowly.

The Irken spotted her immediately, despite her stealthiness, and raised a blaster. She burst into the room as he fired on her, rolling down the stairs and recovering near the Earthen vehicle, leaping over it as he reloaded. She popped two small automatics from her PAK and ran to the back of her cover, listening for movement. She could hear footsteps very slowly making their way towards the truck, and then the footsteps were replaced by the quiet tap of spider limbs.

She dropped to the ground and skooted underneath the vehicle, then came out the other side, open firing on the rogue. He had anticipated this, it seemed, and was already moving quickly to evade her shots. She transitioned to spider limbs then, and the room became a tangle of metallic limbs and blasts, then guns were discarded for claws and knives instead.

This was Skoodge. Skoodge the outlaw, Skoodge the traitor to the Armada, Skoodge, who was wearing blue and grey, the colors of the resistance. Tak longed to tear him limb from limb. Everybody had thought he was dead after the mishap on The Massive, but she had always suspected otherwise. Knowing she was right didn't even feel like a victory. She had managed to damage one of his oculars when he disentangled himself from her PAK limbs and pushed her away sharply. She caught herself on the far wall and threw her knife at him, but he had dodged quickly, even with poor depth perception. Coward. Traitorous coward, who would push her away and buy time for his eye to heal rather than fight her and face his due punishment. She wanted nothing more than to bring his broken PAK to her Tallest, and not even for the satisfaction of being praised.

She thought about yelling at him, as she launched herself across the room again, all flashing limbs and tearing claws. She _wanted_ to yell at him, when he pushed her away again, evaded to the other side of the garage, near the doors. She wanted to scream, when he tossed down a smoke grenade and left through the door into the rest of the house. Had he killed Zim? Had it been easy for him, had he taken Zim's PAK as some kind of prize, put his body in the ship? She supposed she should thank him for one thing, but she would die before the Resisty got ahold of a Cold PAK; she would die before that disgusting Vortian got anywhere close to one.

Storming over to the ship with a slight limp from a torn tendon that was rapidly healing, she threw it open. Inside was only half of what she had been expecting, but what she had not planned for was coming face to face with a petrified Earthling.

She paused, staring at it for a moment in detached disgust, and then her eyes flickered down. There he was, tied up and motionless, his PAK scorched so he could not heal. He was wrapped up in cloth and rope, and she reached down to rip at the bandages, pulling them from the wound on his temple. It was closing up, but the sickly color of his skin suggested that he was either dead, or he was about to be. She prodded it, and the Earthling made a small, squeaky noise that almost sounded like a protest. She fixed it with her cold stare, daring it to speak.

"**Well**," she said after a moment, though not in English, despite the fact that she was clearly addressing the Earthling, "**this wasn't how I thought it would go**_._"

"S-Sorry?" The Earthling piped up, and though her PAK had already downloaded every known language to this planet's filthy race, she did not reply.

She made a mental note to come back and dispose of Zim's body, but she would bring his PAK to her Tallest for them to deal with, as she was not keen on wiping them. Giving Zim one last look, she closed the hatch of the cockpit and marched away, grabbing her automatics on her way to the exit. The outlaw wasn't leaving without his ship and prize, so Tak knew he would still be on the premises somewhere, hiding and nursing his wounds like a pathetic smeet. Her own wounds had almost finished healing, something she wondered if he had even thought about. A coward would, though, she reminded herself. A coward ran from their fate, because they did not have the skill to attack, to obliterate. She pushed the door open and stood still in the hazy living room, where the smoke was heading to disperse through the cracked front door. Once again she studied the room, focussing her mind and listening for any movement.

There was a commotion in the front yard. She pulled the door open and watched, bemused, as an Earthling burst out of mid-air, presumably from the inside of Zim's voot. It saw her, and then surged towards her after a brief moment, on a warpath.

"Did you think rope could hold me?" it shouted, enraged, and Tak slammed the door shut, though it would not latch because of the damage she had done to it earlier. What on Irk had she stumbled into? She didn't have time to be murdering the natives at the moment, Skoodge was her main concern. She wasn't supposed to do any noticeable harm, anyway. Scorch marks were easy to leave behind without consequence, but she'd have to dispose of the bodies, and that took time she did not have if she wanted to impress her Tallest.

While she was thinking, the human slammed against the door, knocking it into her and sending her off balance. She hadn't expected it to be so strong, or so determined to fight something that looked like her. She leapt backwards and glared at it as it entered, fists clenched. Unlike the other one, who had three long, crusted gashes on its face, this one looked completely unharmed, though a tad out of breath.

"What the fuck are you doing in my house?" it breathed, tone livid, and rather than answering, Tak lunged forward, pulling a knife from her hip. The Earthling dodged her slice, surprisingly, but instead of grabbing her arm or attempting to disarm her, or even running, like Tak had expecting, it headbutted her, _hard_. Staggering backward from shock, she blinked at the Earthling, her teeth bared. How dare it land a hit? How dare she _let it_ land a hit on her? "Answer my question," it said, apparently completely unfazed after just bashing its head into hers. She sneered, and started tossing her knife up and down.

"**No**," she said, again speaking Irken. She would have to stop underestimating it if she wanted to deal with this quickly. Skoodge could be anywhere right now, lurking in the shadows while he waited for her to drop her guard. She snorted, "**Letting a weak little native take care of me, Skoodge? Pathetic. Come out here and face me!**" She called out, not taking her eyes off the Earthling in front of her, who seemed content to stand its ground, rather than fight.

"I'm going to give you one last chance to answer me, you _freak_," the Earthling said, and brought its hands together, cracking its knuckles in a way Tak supposed it thought was intimidating. She continued to toss her knife, listening intently to the surrounding house. Her antennae barely twitched, "And speak my language. I know you can. Your shitty alien friend did." Tak laughed at this, and caught her knife by the handle.

"**If you don't come out**," Tak said loudly, ignoring the Earthling, "**I'll just kill this thing and eventually find you, anyway. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Skoodge, but nobody has to die here. I know you have a soft spot for pitiful, hopeless things. You come with me, and I leave the locals alone,**" she went on, though she had no intention of following through. It's not like they could modify their memories, and her instructions were very clear. Sloppiness was not allowed. She was to be in and out, without attracting major attention, or alerting the locals. Nobody had to know about these two. They could just disappear, and the other Earthlings would never suspect aliens, once she had cleaned up all the mess.

"Alright," the Earthling said, adjusting its stance and squaring its shoulders, but before it could do anything, Skoodge came tearing down the stairs on his robotic limbs, and Tak leapt to the side as he came crashing down where she had been standing, dropping her knife and grabbing her automatics from within her PAK. The Earthling drew back, and Tak rose to her PAK legs as well, lunging out of Skoodge's way a second time.

Apparently, he did not buy her offer. He yanked his knives out of the floor and she raised her automatics and open fired on him, catching his arm, but missing his vitals as he evaded her shots. They brawled in close combat again, and instead of discarding her guns, she used them for melee, a gory and tempting vision coming to her as she pictured herself shoving one of her guns through his ocular and blasting his brains right out of his skull. Perhaps she'd use both, and completely obliterate his head. As they fought, one of his claws struck her antennae and then he grabbed it, yanking hard. She screamed, and twisted her head through the pain to sink her teeth into his arm, but an agonizing pain like she had never felt was already spreading through her, and as she kicked and shoved him away, she saw at the end of his gnarled arm one of her bent antennae dangling from his hand. He fell into the wooden table, having been launched with enough force to break it to pieces.

Tak roared, but her senses were dulled, and to herself, she sounded very far away. She had dropped her weapons at some point in her panic, but she still had a knife, and before she knew it, it was in her hand. She surged forward immediately. Attacking faster than Skoodge could react, she sunk her knife into his torso, dragging it down past his chest. When he screamed, she gave a bloody grin, but fell backwards when he went for the face again, yanking her knife from his torso. Blood poured from his open wound, but his claws still dug into her skin, scratching through the flesh. In a fit of panic, she lashed out at him hard, and sank her knife into his throat, dragging it across the front. Abruptly, he staggered back, and fell to his knees, hands clinging to the fresh wound, trying to keep the fluids in. Blood dribbled from his open mouth.

Breathing heavily and swaying on her feet, Tak stared down at him through a haze of pain, and thought of all the things she had wanted to say earlier, and all the things she had wanted to say before, after he had disappeared.

This was revenge, after all. It had to be sweet, not just bitter. As she looked down at his pitiful form, however, with his neck sliced open, blood pouring down his front, one of his eyes bleeding and swollen, and his face covered in fast-closing gashes and bruises, she found that she did not want to say anything, after all. This was enough. He had ruined her chances of becoming an Invader all those years ago, but he was paying her back now by dying. She wiped some of the blood off of her face, and raised her knife.

A blast hit her in the chest before she could bring it down. She felt robbed, her brain still full with images of how she would have stabbed Skoodge over and over until all of her pain and frustration was gone, would have laughed while she did it, and ripped his PAK from him before he was dead. As she fell, all she could think was that it served her right for hesitating. Only cowards and fools hesitate.

Tak hit the ground, and the world went dark.

On the other end of the blaster stood Gaz, her lips set into a tight line, a headache pulsing in her temples.

Perhaps it had been the look on the purple-eyed alien's face, or the brutal way they had been fighting, or even that they had been making too much noise and it had irritated her, but no matter what had made her do it, the sense of calm that settled over the room once the alien had fallen over and stopped moving was almost palpable. She took a minute to recover from her panic, wiping the sweat from her brow, and the hair from her eyes. Dib was standing nearby, as one of the first things she had done when she had escaped the violence of the room was rush to find him. The metal device covered both of his hands completely, latching them together, and Gaz was unsure of how to get it off of him. She had pulled and hit it against the walls and floor, but with no success. As she calmed down, she almost dropped the gun, but held fast to it. It's not like these things could die the proper way, anyway.

"Oh fuck," Dib said, and she knew he must have been looking around at their living room, which had been completely demolished. There was green blood everywhere, the walls had blast marks and holes all over them, and somehow the poor television had been caught up in the action, and now had a sizable hole shot through it. She pressed her hand to her temple, leaning against the wall, and she knew someone had to have called the cops again, because people were talking and yelling outside. "Holy shit."

"They broke the TV," was all Gaz could think to say, as they watched the second alien rise from the remnants of their coffee table, still holding his throat, which seemed to have almost closed up already. Gaz thought about raising her gun, but wasn't sure if it would matter at this point. After a moment, it seemed like he was waiting for something, but Gaz didn't have anything to say. Dib, for once, didn't seem to have anything to say either, and the three of them stood still, watching one another in silence, until finally, the alien cleared its throat.

"Oh wow," it croaked, and then cleared its throat again, "Ah, that's better. Wow," It rubbed its throat, its other hand pressing against its abdomen, which was still too bloody for Gaz to assess, "Sorry, I was just waiting for my vocal chords to repair themselves."

"It's- it's fine," Dib said, his tone forced, and Gaz thought it sounded like a knee-jerk reaction. She stared at the alien in silence, hand still clutching the gun tightly. It definitely seemed to notice this.

"Listen," it said, looking at her, "You just saved me, there's no way I'm a threat to you."

"Why don't you let my brother out of that thing, then," she said immediately, "If you're not a threat."

"I- can't," it said, "I have to take you back to my ship, but I promise-"

"Why don't you let my brother out of that thing," Gaz repeated, with a bit more force, and though she didn't raise the gun, she knew that's what it was thinking of when it sighed and started walking towards Dib. It removed the cuffs and stepped back, holding them in front of it's body like it didn't know what else to do. Dib was rubbing his hands, as if they were sore, but he smiled at the alien.

"Thanks," he said quietly, and the alien nodded. Gaz was beyond caring at this point, and would have liked to forget that all of this had happened, but sirens had just started to blare in the distance.

"That's for us," she said, and she might have found some humor in the situation if she weren't so detached.

"Oh shit," Dib said, "Oh fuck," he was right to panic. One look at their house was enough to tell that something beyond video games had happened here, and this was the second time the cops had been called to their address in the last few hours. The alien looked alert immediately, a snake-like appendage extending from its back and grabbing the cuffs he had been holding, tucking them away in the machine on its back.

"I have to go," it said, "Right now. I can't be here when the human law enforcement arrives."

"What, no, can't you- clean this up, or-" he froze, eyes on the other alien as it began to convulse and twitch on the floor. Gaz saw it too, and raised her gun to shoot it again. It stopped convulsing, "Ooh my god," Dib said, pressing his hands to the sides of his head.

"Come with me," the alien said suddenly, seemingly unfazed by what Gaz had just done, "My Captain will want to speak with you anyway, so just come with me, and we can get out of here."

"No," Gaz said, before Dib could respond. He seemed shocked, and almost angry when he looked at her.

"No?" the alien said, and the sirens were getting louder, but all Gaz wanted was to go back to sleep, "Do you really want to answer for all of this?" it said, gesturing around the room.

"Will you bring us back?" Dib asked, whipping around to look at the alien again. It persed its lips, and Gaz knew it was about to lie.

"I won't keep you there," it said, and Gaz was a little surprised. It wasn't a lie, but she could tell it was a half-truth, and by the look on Dib's face, he knew it too, "I promise I won't."

"But will we be able to leave," Dib insisted, as the other alien began to twitch again. Gaz raised her gun, but Dib smacked it down, rounding on her, "Just stop, okay? Stop!"

"Why?" she bristled, "It's going to wake up-"

"Which is exactly why we have to leave!" the alien said, raising its voice. The sirens were much louder, and Gaz knew they didn't have a lot of time left to talk about this, "Now!" the alien shouted, like it was an order, and Gaz bared her teeth, the stress that had been building up inside her coming to a boiling point.

"You go, then!" she snapped, glancing from Dib to the alien, "You go. I'm not leaving."

"I'm not leaving you here," Dib said, and Gaz stared at him, almost surprised that he had already decided he was going. She shouldn't be surprised, she supposed. Nothing he did should surprise her anymore.

"I'm not leaving either of you here!" the alien shouted, and Gaz raised her gun, pointing directly at its forehead. It glared down the barrel defiantly, as if the blast wouldn't stun it, as if she wouldn't do it, as if she hadn't just shot an injured alien already, as if she hadn't tried to kill one of their kind before. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but Dib stopped her again, saw that she was going to pull the trigger because he knew her and this alien did not. He grabbed her hand and pointed the gun upwards when she fired, and bits of the ceiling rained down between them. The alien stepped back, a look of shock on its face, and Gaz did not break eye contact.

"Gaz!" Dib shouted, as if scolding her, and she yanked her hand out of his grip, ready to hit him, when his expression shifted from angry to terrified. She looked around, and police cars were screeching to a halt in the yard and on the sidewalk, with officers pouring out of them and sirens still blaring, but this was only half of their problems. The alien Dib had not let her shoot had just stood back up.

The alien soldier whirled around, just in time to block the other's knife, which sank into its arm. It twisted the other's wrist and pushed it back, and the police outside were shouting orders and setting up a perimeter, looking in at the commotion through the living room windows.

For Gaz, all of this seemed to be happening in slow motion. Dib grabbed her arm, and the alien was shouting for them to go, to get to the garage and board the ship. It deployed metallic legs from the machine on its back, and Gaz gritted her teeth as Dib steered her away, dragged her to the garage. No. She didn't want to get on one of those ships. She didn't want to be taken away into space. She wanted her father to come home and take care of things, and she wanted them to go and get a pizza, and she wanted both of the aliens to die. She yanked her wrist out of Dib's grasp and pushed him away, and she couldn't hear what he was saying as she turned around, back towards the fight. The aliens were throwing each other around and shouting, one of them had broken the lamp next to the couch, and the police called for an open fire. She didn't care. A white hot rage was running through her, and she felt immortal as she ran back towards them, lifting her gun.

The windows shattered, but she kept moving and fired, hitting the purple-eyed alien directly in the head. As it fell away, the soldier turned around to look at her, and she was still firing. She hit the purple one again as it fell, hit the soldier on the arm. It was yelling something, Dib was pulling her away again, and a bullet grazed her arm, making her double over and stumble as Dib yanked her backwards, away from the windows. Bullets were flying past them, and she watched as the alien soldier rushed after them on its metal spider legs, looking angry and terrified as it tried to avoid their gunfire, still catching a few bullets in its torso. Gaz almost fell a few times, and allowed Dib to twirl her around, allowed him to lift her, because her leg felt like it was on fire, and so did her side. It was like she had a stitch from running five feet, and when she pressed her hand to it, it came away wet and red.

Dib stumbled and almost fell, but they made it to the garage, and he slammed the button to open the garage door. Like surfacing from underwater, their voices were coming back into focus, but so, too, was a hot, sharp pain in her middle and her leg. From outside, it was louder than before, and she couldn't believe her eyes when the alien rushed out into the fray, running and weaving through the bullets, and then disappearing into thin air. Dib was carrying her as he climbed into the ship, and as the ship closed, the engine seemed to start itself. There was a feeling like the air being forced out of her lungs, and she closed her eyes against the nausea and the pain as the world was ripped out from under her, scenery flashing by too quickly to see. It felt like they had left her stomach behind, and she gave a dry heave.

"It's fine!" Dib was saying, though his voice was hoarse, and his tone suggested that he didn't really believe it himself. She heaved again and felt the strong urge to vomit as they suddenly slowed down, and, "We're fine!" Dib said again, but when she opened her eyes, all she saw from the cockpit was a black canvas of stars.


	8. Filthy Human Pity

Dib's stomach caught up with him about a minute after they had left the Earth's atmosphere.

"It's fine!" he was shouting, without really knowing why, and, "We're fine!" he shouted as the ship slowed down to a crawl. His hands were still clutching Gaz's prone body in a vice grip, as if she were the only thing tethering him to reality. He unclenched his jaw, forced his eyes open, and looked out through the cockpit. Blackness and stars were all he could see, save for Skoodge's ship, a good distance ahead of theirs. He looked around the cockpit until he found Zim, still sprawled out on the floor, and looking no better than he had. If anything, he looked even paler, and the other Irken had pulled his bandages off, so Dib could clearly see the ugly, blackening gash on his temple. He relaxed his grip on Gaz after he had gathered his bearings, and pushed her hair out of her face. Her skin was clammy.

"G-Gaz?" he tried in a low voice, but she did not respond. Her face was waxy and sweat had beaded at her hairline. He had never seen her look so ill, "Gaz, can you hear me? I-I need you to wake up."

Gaz remained silent, and Dib propped her up against the dash and checked her pulse. He let out the breath he had been holding when he felt a steady, though slow, beat. He lowered her carefully to the ground and climbed out of his chair with difficulty in the too-small cockpit to check on her wounds. Blood was caked all along her shirt, from her arm to her torso, and her calf looked just as bad. He let out a shaky breath, shaking his head.

"I'm so fucking sorry, Gaz," he muttered, even though he knew she couldn't hear him. He took off his jacket and did his best to stop the bloodflow, but without any kind of medical attention, he was afraid she would bleed out before they got to wherever it was Skoodge was taking them.

As if on cue, the dashboard began to flash a vibrant green, and Dib, shocked by the sudden noise, was startled into standing and his head crashed into the ceiling. He let out a yell and a curse as Skoodge's wide-grinned face appeared on the screen.

"Dib!" he called out, and Dib glowered down at him, but refused to move away from Gaz's body. He knelt down again to apply pressure to her wounds. He could still see the screen, anyway, since the ship was styled for someone much shorter than him, "Hey, buddy, thought I'd check in on you and let you know there are Irken medical supplies in the compartment just underneath the captain's chair- yep, that's it! Haha, ouch!"

Dib had just swung to his right so quickly that he bashed his elbow against the dash. He suppressed another curse and pulled the compartment open. The kit was easy enough to find- it was a sleek, light pink case with a triangular emblem on the front, and it was the only thing in the drawer that didn't look like a weapon. He popped it open quickly and found bandages sitting neatly in the leftmost compartment, along with an assortment of foreign bottles whose labels he couldn't read.

"Thanks," he mumbled to Skoodge as he unravelled the bandages and rolled up Gaz's shirt to get to the biggest wound. He felt around on her back and left side, but there was no exit wound. The bullet was lodged somewhere in her torso. Trying to suppress this ugly revelation, he began to wind the bandage around her, not even othering to touch the other bottles. He wasn't sure it would be safe to ask Skoodge if there was Irken disinfectant- or if Skoodge would even know if it was safe to use on Gaz.

"She was definitely going to kill me," Skoodge said after a moment, and Dib started. He had forgotten Skoodge was there. He glanced up at the screen and gave him a helpless kind of look and a shrug. He wasn't about to apologize for Gaz's actions. After all, he had almost killed Zim, "I mean, I'm not mad or anything! I probably would have done the same thing! Er... well, actually, I wouldn't have, but that's gotten me into trouble before. I don't blame her, is what I'm trying to say."

"Good," Dib said, rolling her shirt down and then rolling her sleeve up to wrap her arm. This one was just a graze, it looked like, and it wasn't very deep, but might need stitches. He decided to do the leg first, since it seemed more serious, and began rolling up the leg of her sweatpants, "She was just trying to... She didn't want any of this." He sucked in a breath when he saw her leg. It was caked in blood, but at least it looked like the bullet had gone right through, though it had taken a big chunk of her calf with it.

"Well, neither did I," Skoodge said, and Dib could almost hear him rolling his eyes, "Tak came out of nowhere... I really didn't expect that."

"Can you- I mean," he slapped the bandages against his legs in frustration, looking helplessly at Gaz's leg, "What am I supposed to do about this?"

"Pack it with gauze and wrap it," Skoodge suggested, shrugging, "I'm not trained in medicine. It's a pity you humans can't regenerate. Honestly, I'm surprised you can't by now. It's not that complicated."

"It- _is_," Dib stammered, wincing as he attempted to follow Skoodge's advice, "It actually is, though."

"Okay, well," Skoodge made a strange, condescending sound, and then continued, "She should be fine. We're not far from the base. I just wanted to have a word with you before we do another jump. I mean, before _you_ do another jump. I mean, I'm doing another jump, too, but I'm going-"

"Okay, I get it!" Dib snapped, his anxiety skyrocketing as he wrapped Gaz's leg. He shot Skoodge a pleading look, "Are you saying you're not coming with us?"

"Well, yes. But you don't have to worry," he waved a hand at Dib dismissively, "Nobody's going to hurt you or your sister."

"What about Zim?" he asked on impulse, and his gaze flickered to Zim as he spoke. He almost jumped when his eyes met with Zim's, but he managed to remain composed. Zim stared at him blankly for a moment, and then he watched Dib's hands as he fastened the bandages on Gaz's leg.

"Zim... really isn't your problem anymore, Dib," Skoodge said nervously, "I mean, it's great you subdued him and everything, but we'll take it from here. The Captain wants to speak with all of you when you arrive, and then he'll take care of Zim."

"You mean kill him?" Dib asked, now moving on to the gash on Gaz's arm.

"No," Skoodge said, though it sounded unconvincing, and he didn't meet Dib's eyes, "No, no. Nah. Anyway," he cleared his throat, "I have to get this ship outfitted. It's basically useless to us as it is, and it doesn't even have a jammer. It doesn't have _anything_." he rolled his eyes, as Dib replaced the bandages in the first aid kit for now. Since Dib was no longer focussed on Gaz, it seemed to him that Skoodge was pouting, almost. When they were on Earth, he had acted very differently, but now he seemed almost... irritable.

"Are you sure you're not mad because Gaz tried to kill you?" he asked, grimacing, and Skoodge shook his head.

"No, no. No," he said, "it's not that. I'm just... In trouble. With the Captain. So..."

"Oh," Dib blinked, and then, because he couldn't help himself, "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine," Skoodge sighed, shrugging, "It's fine, it's my fault," they drifted into an uncomfortable silence, and then Skoodge clapped very loudly, which startled Dib into being frustrated with him again, "So! Until I meet you back at the base, this is goodbye. You won't have any trouble in this part of space- it's basically deserted. Just don't mess around with the controls, don't interact with any ships you see, and don't untie Zim."

"Wh-what will I do when we get to the base?" he asked quickly, before Skoodge ended the transmission, "What do I say?"

"Oh, nothing." he said, as if it were obvious, "They don't speak, uh. English. Earth really should get- oh, nevermind, it's not important. No, don't worry about it, you don't have to say anything. I've already told the Captain about your sister's injuries, and they'll take her to the Medical Ward immediately upon arrival. They'll take you too, actually, just to get you checked out. For translation purposes, the Captain won't have an audience with you until I get back? So just relax in the room they give you, don't get in any fights, do what they say, and you'll be fine!"

"I don't- I can't speak whatever language it is that they speak? Irken?" Skoodge almost laughed, and then shook his head.

"They don't speak Irken. Well, actually, they do, everybody does, but the standard is Vortian. Irken is kind of. Not allowed, or whatever."

"Okay, so I don't speak _Vortian_," Dib said, a bit of panic edging into his voice.

"Then just- do what they show you?" He shrugged, "Listen, I don't know what to tell you, just cooperate and you'll be fine. I have to go, I need to get back to the ship in good time. Your ship is on autopilot, there are snacks behind the seat, and if you want to listen to the radio, it's the only button that works. I locked your controls, is what I'm saying. Don't untie Zim. Bye!"

"Wait!" but the transmission had already been cut, and Dib let out a kind of disgusted sound, which was mingled with fear. He fell quiet, staring at the empty screen for a few minutes, and then he grabbed the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes tightly in frustration. The cabin was silent, save for the subtle, raspy sounds of breathing.

"Can Zim make a request?" Dib jumped, startled. He had almost forgotten about Zim. Dib looked around at him, and his hands fumbled with the first aid kit.

"Oh, yeah, right," he said, pulling the bandages back out, "I can fix up your head. The other Irken, I think Skoodge called her Tak?"

"Tak?" Zim asked, looking startled. His voice was raspy and strained. Dib pursed his lips, and then climbed out of his seat so he could crouch down in front of Zim as he had with Gaz, "What was she doing on Earth?" He said this very quietly, almost as if he were talking to himself.

"Well, I don't know, but she was pretty terrifying," Dib said, "and she ripped your bandages off. Can you tell me what these bottles are?" Zim examined the bottles Dib held up with disinterest.

"The pink bottle is filled with medication for pain," he said, "The white one is disinfectant."

"Okay, cool," he unscrewed the pink bottle, and took out a few pills, "You, uh, want some of these, right?"

"Yes," Zim said immediately, and Dib tossed them into his open mouth, afraid he would be bitten if he put his hand too close. He replaced the cap on the bottle and put it back into the case, and then he began opening the white bottle. Zim let out a long breath, "Yes. Those are good. The strong kind."

"Oh, uh, good," Dib said, tipping the bottle onto one of the rags that had been folded up in the case, "I'm going to start cleaning you up, so don't bite my hand or anything." Zim glared at him.

"Zim will not be _biting_ anyone," he snorted with derision, his nasal ridge crinkling. He flinched when Dib reached over to start wiping at the crusted, blackened blood that had been smeared across his forehead, but did not pull away. The wound itself wasn't all that bad, Dib noted as he wiped the blood away. It looked worse than it was because it had been bleeding so heavily. After a moment, Zim huffed, "Filthy human pity," it was nearly impossible to tell, because his eyes were a solid red, but Dib could swear he was rolling them, "Why bother?"

"Well, maybe because I feel bad?" he said, "I thought we covered that already."

"Zim is going to be killed the minute he sets foot in that filthy, traitorous base," Zim muttered darkly, "There is no point in cleaning me up."

"He didn't say they were going to kill you," Dib said uncertainly, and Zim snorted again, "Besides, do you really want to be uncomfortable? I feel like I owe you this much, at least."

"Zim would be more comfortable if you untied him," Zim said, narrowing his eyes. Dib was impressed that he hadn't even winced yet from the disinfectant, but then again, maybe Irkens didn't use alcohol in theirs. He rolled his eyes at Zim's request.

"Yeah, no," he said, dabbing away at the last of the crusted blood, his face twisting in revulsion when he saw the pus that lay underneath, "I'd rather not have my face clawed off."

"I'm not going to claw off your face!"Zim said, irritated, "There, now you can untie me!"

"So you can kill me some other way?" Dib finished cleaning his temple and grabbed the bandages, "No! You're staying tied up, Zim."

"Fine! He will just have to break his arm again later!" Zim snarled, and then, "Zim has a request, filthy human!"

"What, another one?" Dib snapped as he wrapped up Zim's forhead, suppressing his guilt when Zim brought up his arm. It wasn't like Dib had done that. Not directly, anyway.

"Zim never made his first request," Zim hissed, glaring at Dib, "You just assumed he would want his injury treated." Dib gave him a puzzled look, fastening the bandages on Zim's head and putting the roll back into the first aid kit.

"Oh. Uh, okay, what's your request?" he asked, "If it has anything to do with freeing you, you can just skip asking me, because I'm saying no right now."

"Zim wants you to remove his PAK!" he said, leaning forward and twisting around with difficulty so that his back, and the large, ovular machine that was attached to it was facing Dib, "You must remove it and dispose of it."

"Why?" he asked, examining the machine, now that he was able to get a closer look. There were three circular markings on it, all the same bright red as his eyes, that seemed like they could be opened. The PAK itself looked to be latched onto Zim's back, or at least it was attached to his clothing. He felt around at the edges, and Zim growled.

"You can remove it without touching me!" he snapped angrily, "Just yank it off and ignore the screams, okay, on three-"

"Uh- okay, no?" Dib pulled away, grimacing at Zim, "I really don't think I should help you, anyway."

"You have to!" Zim shouted, glaring at Zim over his shoulder, "You have to destroy it if you won't let Zim do it! He can't let _them_ have it!"

"Why?" Dib snapped, "Tell me what it is and what it does if you want me to even consider helping you! I already know it heals you- what else does it do? Why don't you want Skoodge and his people to have it?"

"Because!" Zim roared, his voice breaking, and Dib moved backwards a bit as Zim swung himself around again, "Because he _can't_! It's none of your business!" They were quiet for a few moments, during which they merely glared at each other. Zim huffed out an angry breath and flopped backwards with a wince.

"Well, I can't help you," Dib said, and Zim didn't say anything. He was quiet another moment, and then, "As far as I'm concerned, you're the bad guy here, okay? You basically told me that yourself. So, if there's something you've got in your PAK that can help your enemies, why shouldn't I let them have it?"

Zim still did not respond, and Dib sighed, climbing back into his seat. He looked down at Gaz, wondering if their yelling might have woken her up, but she was just as unresponsive as she had been. Her expression was strained, and she was sweating more profusely. Dib rummaged around in the first aid kit for another rag, and he used it to wipe her face. He ganced at Zim, but he wasn't looking Dib's way, just glaring silently at the floor. Deciding it wasn't worth it to try to talk to him right now, Dib went back to tending Gaz, and looked out the cockpit's window. Stars were flying by slowly. It seemed they were moving at a leisurely pace on their way. Dib wondered when they would jump- Skoodge had said they would be going into another one before he left.

"You should have killed Zim," Zim muttered after a long silence, "When he asked you to." Dib sighed.

"I can't just murder someone like that," he said, "you were down. I just wanted to talk. You were the one who pulled a gun."

"You were the one who would not stop your incessant babbling!" Zim shot back, turning his glare on Dib for a moment, "I just wanted some quiet! I wasn't going to shoot you _in the vehicle_!"

"You were holding me hostage and you were going to kill me!" Dib shouted incredulously.

"You were obstructing my mission!" Zim shouted back.

"_You_-" Dib pursed his lips angrily and pointed at Zim, "were going to destroy my fucking planet."

"Well, _you_! Were the one who brought me there!" Zim said, looking very triumphant. Dib glowered at him, and then turned abruptly back to Gaz, "Aha! Nothing to say, huh? Because you know I'm right!"

"No," Dib muttered petulantly, "It's just pointless arguing with you."

Zim began repeating what Dib had just said in a mocking voice, but before he could finish, the dash had lit up red, and was flashing. An alert went off in Irken, and Zim's expression turned grim. He leaned back, groaning.

"What? What's happening?" Dib asked, looking from Zim to the console and then to Gaz, who he positioned between himself and the dash. This was only achievable by twisting himself sideways in his seat, and his legs were now crammed up beside Zim, who sneered at him, and kneed his leg roughly.

"Wouldn't you like to know! Filth! Get your human limb-things away from-" but he was cut off when the ship suddenly gave a great surge forward, and Dib felt the sudden, strong urge to vomit once again. Zim gave a loud groan from the floor, "Zim hates the hyper speed!"

Dib could not muster a response, as he was currently trying to ground himself. Hyper speed was the worst sensation he had ever experienced. It was as if he could feel the stillness of the cabin and the extreme motion of the ship at the same time, and even though he had already experienced it once, it still made him dizzy and sick. He closed his eyes tightly so he could not see the stars that had become lines of light outside the window, and he grabbed the dash to keep himself steady.

The jump lasted for only a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity to him. They slowed very suddenly, as they had before, and when Dib opened his eyes he saw a large asteroid field in front of them, and not much else. He looked desperately for a sign of something, as the ship had changed its course slightly, and seemed to be heading straight for a particularly large asteroid.

"Uuuuuuuhhh," he looked around at the dash, which was normal again, and then threw a panicked look at Zim, "Okay, I think we're going to crash! Skoodge sent us into an asteroid belt?"

"Wow, how shocking and horrible," Zim deadpanned, and relief was clear on his features, "Never thought a traitor would be the type to lie to someone," he grinned now, and relaxed against the dash, "It's just too bad we're all going to die in a barren corner of space, all alone and probably on fire for a while!"

"You're not helping!" Dib yelled, and then turned back to the controls, "What do I do here? Skoodge said he locked the console!"

"He said the radio worked," Zim supplied, and Dib sent him a dark look, only just able to keep himself from lashing out.

"We're going to die!" he snapped at Zim as they approached the asteroid.

He attempted to take control of the ship, but everything was locked into place. He could not pull the levers that steered it, and though he had began pressing buttons at random, none of them seemed to do anything, except for one. A loud blast of alien music that sounded almost like a metal band abruptly roared over the speakers, and Dib couldn't seem to shut it off once he'd pressed it. Was this part of Skoodge's plan? Growing more panicked, he shouted at Zim over the music.

"Will you tell me how to work this thing? You must know how to override the system!" And then, struck by a sudden thought, he shouted, "You said you did! Back on Earth you said you'd unlock the ship if I untied you!"

"Haha, yeah! It's just too bad you can't untie Zim!" Zim said loudly over the din, "Besides, he likes this song! Be quiet and let him die!"

"If I untie you!" Dib yelled, "Will you get us out of here?" Zim looked up at him sharply.

"Will you?"

"If you get us back to Earth!" Dib shouted back, knowing full well that Zim would probably take them back to the Armada. What choice did he have, though? It was death, or a slightly prolonged death he was looking at here, but at least with Zim he and Gaz had a chance of survival, "I'll untie you!"

Before Zim could respond, their ship gave a sudden lurch and over the sound of groaning metal and alien rock music, he heard the alert start wailing again, flashing this time with a white light. He looked out into space and saw that the ship had stopped directly in front of the asteroid, and the rock's surface was opening up very slowly to reveal a silver, metal interior with slate grey ships all parked in rows. When the door had opened wide enough, the ship gave another lurch, as if it were being pulled in.

"Dib-thing?" Zim was yelling over the music, "Dib! You can untie Zim whenever you are ready!"

Dib wasn't listening, though. They had just entered the enormous hangar of the alien base Skoodge had told him about.

* * *

_so, it's been a long time since i posted a chapter! a lot of shit has happened in my life recently, but i've been feeling a bit better lately, and i decided to get back to writing. i'm sorry for the sudden hiatus, but thank you so much for the support! we hit thirty follows! that's so cool! _

_also HERE WE GO THESE ARE THE SCENES I AM EXCITED TO WRITE! i really wanted to get the gang off of earth. earth is boring. i was debating cutting away from dib and zim again next chapter, but i think we're gonna stick with them for a while, because i can finally introduce some resisty members, and there's a lot of dialogue i have plans for, too. _

_anyway, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED! what wacky hi-jinks will the gang get up to next time? probably a lot of yelling. i don't know. it's space. thanks for reading!_


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